END GAME
by FairyLights101
Summary: Eren is your average post-grad who works at a bookstore and has a side job with the police as a hacker. Levi is a detective with a shady past. When a case throws them together, they find themselves, and all those around them, in more than they expected. Now faced with a sinister force working in the shadows, they must race against time to save everyone they know and love.
1. Meeting Detective Levi

**A short notice before the story:  
**If the following themes either sicken or disturb you, I advise you hit the 'back' button. This is not a happy story. This is not a kind story. This is a dark story.**  
Contains: Yaoi (eventual), sex and/or sexual themes, gore, violent murder and/or post-mortem scenes, self-harm, addiction, and more.  
You have been warned.**

**END GAME**

**Chapter 1: Meeting Detective Levi**

* * *

Sultry summer air enveloped the world outside, encompassing Eren as he slowly plodded towards the entrance to Inkblot, the bookstore he was currently employed at. He grasped the metal door handle thoughtlessly, jerking his scorched hand away with a hiss before glaring at the door and yanking it backwards quickly, ripping his hand away and letting the sweet bliss of air conditioning envelope him as the door clicked shut behind him. The smell of books and paper, musty and sweet, mixed with the scent of orange wood polish and the bitter scent of coffee.

Eren walked to the end of the rows, which stretched out on both sides, and turned left, to where the semi-circle desk was sitting, nestled against the wall. Marco Bott, Eren's boss, was sitting it one of the chairs, flipping through _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, the same book he had been reading for the last two days. Hannah Smith sat behind him, her fingers flying across her phone's screen while a cup of coffee sat steaming on the desk in front of her. Marco glanced up from his book and smiled, "Hi Eren. Hot out there?"

Eren rolled his eyes and moved to pick up a stack of books lying on the edge of the desk, "That, Marco, is the understatement of the century." He slid the stack forwards with one hand, catching the bottom with the other as it slid off the desk, before he picked them up and began the process of putting them back in place. _Why people can't do the simple job of putting these up by themselves, I have no idea._ The thought was not the first along those lines and Eren was positive it was not to be the last.

He slid _13 Reasons Why_ into its more-or-less proper place and moved on. He turned into another row and balanced the books carefully on his palm as he began to file more books away. Someone to his right cleared their throat and Eren glanced over. It was a man; a relatively short man, with black hair that was evenly cut before turning into a buzz and bright gray eyes, the underside of his eyes lined with deep, dark bags. The man tugged idly at the hem of his white t-shirt, glaring at Eren, irritation pouring out of every pore of the man's body.

"Would you mind moving so I can leave?" Eren raised an eyebrow at the frosty tone that the man used but pressed himself closer to the bookshelves all the same. The man rammed his hands into his pockets and brushed past. "Stupid brat…" Eren nearly dropped the stack of books in indignation, staring after the man, his mouth hanging open. _What the fuck?_

* * *

Eren turned the page, his eyes scanning the text, occasionally glancing up at the television screen that had been turned to a baseball game in order to provide some background noise to his otherwise silent apartment. He sighed and shifted lower on the worn gray couch so that his knees were halfway across the far armrest while the top of his head was pushed up against the other armrest. Needless to say, it was a cramped couch that was hard-pressed to fit two on it.

Eren let the book falling forwards and hit his chest as he stared past the top of it, his eyes fixed on the cracked white plaster above. There was no point in continuing to read, especially since he had been reading the same sentence for several minutes now. He couldn't even remember what it was about, even though he must have reread it at least a dozen times over.

His phone began to violently buzz on the wooden coffee table to his right, where he had dropped it next to the vase of white carnations Mikasa brought him every week. For reasons unknown to Eren, the black-haired girl found it necessary to bring him flowers, no matter how girly he insisted it was. He had tried to hide them one time and one time only. It had not gone over too well.

Eren stretched a hand out, picked the phone up, and glanced at the caller ID. **Call from: Petra Ral**. The phone dropped back onto the coffee table with a clunk and the book was deposited beside it in favor of Eren being able to roll over, smushing his face into the soft gray fabric of the couch, breathing in the cottony scent infused with whatever the scent of orange fabric cleaner. Yet another gift from Mikasa, all in favor of helping him keep his apartment neat and orderly even though she had never been obliged to do so.

The buzzing carried on for a few more customary renditions before stopping and Eren sighed in relief. _Petra probably just wants to know if I want to come drinking tonight. Hopefully I can get away with not answering_. The phone began to buzz again, but this time, as soon as one call dropped another came through. The first two were nothing more than a slight annoyance. By the twelfth, Eren was about to throw his phone out the window so it could shatter on the concrete streets below. He rolled over, slammed his hand onto his phone, and raised it to his ear, punching the "Accept" button. "What do you want Petra?"

_"Oh, you know, the same old, same old. Just need you to make sure you're alive so that way I can tell you to get your ass down here in ten minutes."_

"… What if I don't wanna come? What if I wanna stay home since it's my day off at the bookstore?"

_"Oh boo ho. Get your ass down here anyways. Irvin requires your presence. 'Effective immediately,' he said. Or at least it was something along the lines of that for the most part."_

"Petra, it's my day _off_. Does caterpillar-brow not know that?"

_"Haha Eren, that was very funny. Seriously though, we've got a new case and Moses is taking care of his mother. She just had cataract surgery."_

Eren sighed and looked up at the ceiling, running his fingers through his hair absently. "Fine… I'll be there in twenty. Anything I need to bring?"

_"You just need your brain and something to carry stuff in – see you in twenty."_

Petra dropped the call before Eren could get a snarky comment off at her. He sat up with a groan, glaring at the phone. _One of these days, I am going to _strangle_ her._ He stood, slid the phone into his pocket, and turned the TV off. Within five minutes he left his apartment, light brown satchel over his shoulder, iPod blaring, and spinning his key ring on his index finger.

* * *

Eren pushed the heavy oak door leading into the police station open, glad that someone had finally gotten around to greasing the hinges. He stepped into the cool relief of shade and air conditioning, standing still for a moment as he felt the sweat more or less freeze on his body. "Petra!" Eren called out into the office, searching for the short ginger girl amongst the other officers.

"Eren, you finally made it!" Petra called, popping up from behind a desk bowed with enormous piles of paperwork. She ducked back behind the stacks of paper, reappearing a few moments later holding a manila folder. "Come on, come on," she said, waving him onwards as she turned back around, "Irvin and Levi are waiting on you."

Eren groaned but resigned himself to following Petra through the maze of desks, stacks of paperwork, files, and assorted bits of evidence. One would think that a police station would be a little cleaner, but considering the work load that this particular force had to deal with, Eren could understand the chaos. He caught sight of Irvin. The tall blonde man was talking with someone, leaning over a desk and making jabbing movements with his arm.

"Alright," Petra said, "You should know where to go from here." She turned and strode away, flipping the manila folder open and scanning the contents.

Eren sighed and rounded the desk, "Irvin, I'm here." Both men turned and Eren stared at the unknown of the two. Or rather, to be more precise, he stared at the nameless man from the bookstore three days ago. He was wearing a long-sleeved dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and black pants. That couldn't have been a very comfortable combination considering the humidity that still filled the air outside. _You have got to be kidding me._

Irvin straightened up and turned, snagging a manila folder off of the desk and holding it out for Eren. "Here is your case," he said, "You will be working with Levi on this for the time being considering Moses is out currently. Eren, this is Detective Levi Rivaille. Levi, this is Eren Jäeger."

Levi looked up at Eren, a scowl adorning his face and his blue-gray eyes boring into Eren's. Eren stuck his hand out, concealing a grimace and attempting to smile warmly, "It's nice to meet you Detective Levi."

Levi's eye twitched a bit and he stared critically at Eren's hand for a moment before he turned back around in his chair, letting out an irritated huff. Eren let his hand drop back to his side, glaring half-heartedly at the black-haired man. "Your hands are filthy, you disgusting brat." Eren felt his eye twitch and he clenched his hands, desperate to wrap his fingers around the small man's throat.

"I suppose I can leave it to you to solve this case then," Irvin said, easing his way past Eren, "Good luck." Eren couldn't tell if the words were directed at the two of them about solving the case or just to him about restraining the murderous urges he was currently feeling. Irvin left them, leaving an uncomfortable silence between Eren and Levi.

Levi glanced up at Eren, his stormy gray eyes uninterested and irritated. "Are you going to read that or are you just going to sit there and stare like an idiot?"

Eren sighed. It was going to be a long, arduous case. Eren opened the file, flicking through the papers, skimming the documents. _Samuel Masters, a thirty-one year old male. Arrested twice for drug possession and has been investigated for a claim of domestic violence. His body was found last night and is currently being prepared to be autopsied. He was rumored to have been affiliated with several gangs and or sectors of the black market._ "So…" Eren said, shutting the folder, "What now?"

Levi turned around in the chair and stood, sliding the black swivel chair back under the desk. "Now, we go to the bastard's apartment."

* * *

Levi ducked under the yellow crime scene tape first, leaving Eren to push the tape out of his way without breaking it. The scene was desolate except for two guards that they had posted to ensure that no one disturbed the scene. "Hey Nanaba, hey Hitch." Both officers nodded at Eren as he ducked under the tape, straightening to examine the apartment beyond the white door.

Levi had already pulled on a pair of black leather gloves and was slowly moving around the room, examining the shelves that were lined with books, knick knacks, and various other meaningless articles. Eren watched as Levi ran his fingers along the edge of one of the shelves, pulling his hand away and staring at his dusty fingers in disgust. "Filthy…" Levi muttered as he turned his head and looked at Eren, disdain clear in his eyes. "Well are you just going to stand there or are you actually going to examine the room?"

Eren rolled his eyes, "It's not my fault," he grumbled, "The closest I've come to doing this is watching _CSI_ occasionally when I'm home."

He approached the bloodstain and the chalk body outline; most of the blood appeared to be coming from the upper abdominal area. The coffee table beside of the outline had been flipped, the various articles and devices thrown haphazardly across the floor. Eren ran his eyes along the walls.

The open window attracted his attention first. It was just inside of the apartment's living room, right next to the small hallway which most likely led to the deceased's bedroom. Eren stood and peered around the corner. There was a smear of blood on the wall, hidden as it was on the non-visible side from his previous angle. Eren glanced at the floor; a trail of blood splatters and droplets that led from the smear to the still-damp circle of blood that had soaked into the carpet.

He glanced to the base of the wall, his eyes draw to a small piece of paper, folded numerous times and a bright blue. Eren crouched down and picked it up by the corner, carefully using his nails to pry the folds apart. The note was simple:** Die slowly you filthy mole.** Eren tucked the note into his pocket and straightened up and moved towards the four doors lining the small hallway, two of which were left ajar.

Eren pushed the closer of the two open; it was just a bathroom, smelling faintly of bleach. He pushed the second door open and peered into the bedroom. The room was torn apart, with boxes, blankets, and various other things thrown all across the room. Several guns and large knives littered the floor, along with several small bags filled with white powder and green leaves. Eren slowly edged his way in, carefully stepped over the scattered objects. Nudging anything would probably not be the best way of getting on the cops side.

There was a smattering of blood on the floor near the bed, a tooth lying nearby. Whoever had murdered Masters had dragged him out of bed and beaten him. Masters must have escaped for a few moments before being stabbed in the hall and left to stumble out into the living room and die. Eren glanced around the room one last time and left, edging out slowly. He went back to the living room, his eyes sliding over the blood on the wall and over towards Levi.

The other man was peering at the bloodstain currently, rubbing his chin absently as his light gray eyes bored into the stain. Levi abruptly turned around, a fresh scowl on his face. "Come on," he growled, "We're going to the coroners."

* * *

Levi rapped on the door and Eren watched as the shorter man tapped his foot, impatient for whoever the coroner was to answer. The door jerked inwards, revealing a tall, smiling young woman with brown hair piled high in a bun and her brown eyes shining behind her square black-rimmed glasses with excitement.

"Levi, I'm so glad you could make it! We just finished stitching Masters up too! Well, we actually finished that up about three hours ago, but that's not the point!" The woman turned to Eren, her face glowing with maniacal glee, "And who might you be?" Levi pressed his index finger against the woman's forehead, pushing her back into the room and following her in, gesturing impatiently for Eren to follow.

"Hanji, Eren, Eren, Hanji." Hanji rolled her eyes as the door clicked shut behind Eren, leaving them closed in a cold room with a white tile floor, a white ceiling, and walls lined with what looked like lockers. Eren grimaced; cubbyholes for dead bodies, how _wonderful. So help me God, if any noises come from those lockers, I am so out of here._

"Now, now Levi," the woman chided, sticking a hand out for Eren, "That's no way to introduce someone! My name is Zoe Hanji. You can just call me Zoe though! What's yours?" Eren stretched his hand out, chary of the possibility that the woman might break his fingers from over excitement.

"My name is Eren Jäeger," he murmured "Just call me Eren." He made a genuine effort to smile at the eccentric woman. Zoe beamed back at him and twirled around, marching further into the tiled room towards one of the six tables, only one of which was currently occupied by a sheet-swathed figure lying unmoving on the cool aluminum slab.

"Moblit," Hanji called, "Can you get the photographs?" Eren turned his head at the creak of a previously unnoticed door. A man of average height and build with short brown hair and glasses stood in the doorframe of the adjoining office.

"Sure thing Dr. Hanji. And my name still isn't Moblit." The man turned back around, disappearing back into the office. Eren could see his form moving, blurred and indistinct through the frosted glass. The sound of a metal filing cabinet opening with a screech filled the morgue, grating along his eardrums.

Zoe scratched her head absently, nudging her glasses further up on her nose, "Really now? Well then, it _is_ possible to learn something new every day. And I thought I knew everything about this place! Then again, there is a distinct difference between objects, bodies, and living people…" Moblit, or whatever his name was, appearing from the small office once more, a blue folder clutched in his hand. "Here you go Doctor," he said, handing Zoe the folder before ducking back into the office.

Zoe handed the folder to Eren and moved over to the occupied table, pulling the pristine white sheet away from the dead man's body, revealing his upper torso. There were six wounds, not counting the incisions that Zoe had made in order to examine the man's organs. All had been cleaned off any remnants of blood lingering on the pallid flesh, but only the 'Y' shaped incision that Zoe had made had been stitched up. The black stiches stood out, contrasting the white flesh of the man's body and the red of the edges of the wounds. Zoe began to talk about them, pointing to each of them in turn with one hand as she tugged a pair of latex gloves on.

"You've probably already seen the crime scene already so I'll cut to the chase. I believe that he was dragged out of his bed sometime during the night and punched in the face, which explains the missing tooth, along with the bruising along the jawline on the left side. Then he was stabbed in the hallway. Judging from the height at which the blood was I am assuming that the wound just below his right kidney was the first. Masters then stumbled into the living room and was thrown to the floor before being stabbed in the base of his throat, three times in his left ribcage, and once through his heart. It looks like he was hit on the temple with the hilt of the knife. The wounds are about two inches in width and go about six inches down at the furthest point. We can assume that a relatively large hunting knife or a kitchen knife was used, but as the blade was not left, we cannot be certain. He had been dead for about eighteen hours when a concerned neighbor checked up on him after he missed a prearranged meeting."

Levi glanced up from the body to Zoe, "Is that all?"

Zoe nodded and gestured to the body, "Feel free to examine the body if you feel the need." Levi held out his hand and Zoe slapped a pair of latex gloves into his palm.

Levi pulled the gloves on, wriggling his fingers around before letting them snap into place around his wrists. He skipped straight over the wounds and went to the man's feet. Levi pulled the sheet away from the man's feet and crouched down, staring intently at the bottom of the man's feet before raising the left foot slightly. "Have you found something Levi?" Eren asked, peering at the gray-eyed detective.

Levi glanced up, "Do me a favor and pull some gloves on. Check for any more tattoos or marks, particularly around the neck area or on his back. Honestly Hanji, I'm surprised you missed something so obvious."

Zoe wordlessly handed Eren another pair of gloves and pulled a pair on herself, helping Eren pull the corpse up into an upright position. Fingers digging into the cold, almost squishy white flesh, they hoisted the corpse upright until the back was visible. They examined the back together. There was nothing on the man's back other than a mole and some long-healed scars. "Neck, check the neck," Levi said irately, watching Eren and Zoe impatiently. Eren flipped the air on the man's neck on, revealing an unusually straight and even scar on the back of his neck, about three inches long.

"There's a three-inch scar on the back of his neck, towards the base," Eren said, glancing down at Levi. Levi frowned, his eyes sliding from Eren back to the corpse's foot, raising an eyebrow questioningly. "Typically, members of the Swedish Mafia have two markings, the general one and the sector one." Levi let the foot drop back onto the table. "You can let him down now. Eren, we're going back to the station for his computer." Eren and Hanji slowly leaned the body back onto the cold aluminum table. Eren tore his hands away from the body, relieved to finally remove his fingers away from the cold, dead flesh, so strange and vacant without the familiar human warmth that filled them. Hanji tugged the white sheet back into place as Eren and Levi removed their gloves and tossed them into metal wastebasket.

"Come back if you figure anything out," Zoe called, wiggling her fingers at them as they left.

**Chapter 1: End**

* * *

Sorry for the wait; schoolwork has been a royal bitch and I'd rather have a good Alg 2 grade than failing but with a 60-chap story up. Anyways, thank you for reading the first chapter of _End Game_, which I hope you come to enjoy. The note at the beginning of the chapter was merely a warning about the themes that lie ahead. I hope you are prepared.  
The relationship is a slow build; they are not going to have sex within the first five freaking minutes of meeting each other. Maybe another time.  
Anyways, a new chapter will be up in a few days, depending on how long I decide to make it. But they will be considerably longer than those of _Together Again. _Anyways, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the future chapters.


	2. Something Slightly Illegal

**END GAME**

**Chapter 2: Something Slightly Illegal**

* * *

Eren was roused from a trance-like state of staring at the two computer screens when the distant knocking on his door became more of an incessant pounding upon the wood, like someone was trying to break down his door. It snapped him back to reality, and the hum that had settled in the air in the last few minutes turned out to be a voice.

"Eren, open the door!" The voice was familiar and Eren couldn't help but smile as it drifted faintly through the wooden door. Eren stood and shut the lids of the two laptops, leaving them on the coffee table as he went to answer the door. He pulled the door open and was instantly assaulted by two familiar faces, a somewhat short blonde boy with blue eyes and a black-haired girl with steel gray eyes.

"Eren, are you deaf?" Armin said, a smile on the blonde's face, "We've been knocking for the last five minutes." Mikasa nodded, tugging her scarlet scarf further up on her face, habitually hiding her mouth from view. Eren grinned and moved to let his two friends in, stopping when he noticed the third companion of their party.

The third companion, who was short, had black hair, bluish-gray eyes, and an irritated expression. _How does Levi know where I live?_ A scowl flashed across his face before he could wipe the momentary irritation away, sweeping it into the corner of his mind for the time being. Armin noted it and smiled sheepishly, "Oh, do you know him? He was here when we showed up so we weren't quite sure."

Eren shrugged and moved back so that the three could enter, half-tempted to shut the door on Levi as payment for being an ass to someone he barely even knew, but he managed to refrain from doing so. Mikasa seated herself on one of the gray chairs while Armin disappeared into the kitchen, rattling around. Levi sat on the leftmost end of the gray couch, away from the laptops and adjacent to Mikasa's seat.

Eren sat on the edge of the couch, as far away from Levi as he could on the cramped couch. It was more out of anger at the shorter man than trust issues or anything of the sort. Eren glanced at Mikasa, who was looking between Eren and Levi. He glanced at Levi next, who was glancing around the apartment with a critical and disdainful eye.

"Has anyone ever told you the definition of clean by any chance?" Eren sighed and leaned his head on the back of the couch, staring up at the white ceiling. He was about three seconds away from _throttling_ that infuriating midget. Besides, he had just straightened his apartment up yesterday after his shift at the Inkblot! It couldn't possibly be that dirty! Unless of course you counted the overflowing basket of dirty laundry waiting in the corner awaiting a wash, the bits of dust clinging along the edges of the walls, and the array of books that littered any available surface, waiting to be put in their proper places.

"What time is it?" he called, desperate to take his mind off of the train of thoughts that suspiciously resembled fingers wrapped around a slim white throat. "It is 6:45," Armin called from the kitchen. _Well…_ Eren thought. _That would explain why the light coming through the blinds is getting fainter._

Mikasa glanced over at Eren, her fingers rubbing the corner of her scarlet scarf. "How is your work going Eren?" Eren shrugged, pulling his head off the back of the couch so he could actually look Mikasa in the eye. "It's going good," Eren said. "I've got a new case and I've been paired with this man," Eren gestured to Levi. "This is Detect-" Mikasa shook her head, waving her hand up and down.

"I already know him. He's helped with some of the cases I've worked. I introduced him to Armin while we were waiting for you to answer the door." Eren nodded slowly, his eyes sliding over to Levi, who was picking idly at his thumbnail and staring at the coffee table. _Huh... didn't know_

"Well, I've been working on unencrypting the man's computer and files. I just set Breaker on the hard drive. Most of the files should be accessible within a few hours, a day at the most." Levi turned his head towards Eren, an eyebrow raised, "Breaker?" Eren nodded, "Breaker is this program that I designed-"

"With the help of your genius best friend," Armin interrupted, his head appearing in the doorway of the kitchen, a blue cup in one hand and a metal spoon in the other.

Eren rolled his eyes with a grin, "Yes Armin, you helped me with what might have been five minutes worth of coding. Anyways, Breaker is designed to unencrypt information, find patterns in documents in order to break codes, and such. Armin coerced me into calling it Breaker." The blonde boy emerged from the kitchen, almost like talking about him had called him, carrying a tray with four coffee cups; a blue, red, green, and gray cup.

"Levi, I wasn't sure how you like your coffee so I just brought some creamer and sugar out for you." Levi waited for everyone else to take their mugs before he picked the gray one up, ignoring the handle and grasping the rim of the cup. "Black is fine," he murmured, sipping at the dark liquid, steam curling around his face.

Eren let out a sigh of exasperation. _Why does it seem that he's nice to everyone excluding_ me_? Well, nice isn't exactly the word I would use there. It's more like he's less… agitated at them. Because God knows I did something to piss this man off within five minutes of meeting him, both at the store and at the station._ They sat in an awkward silence for several minutes, sipping at their coffee and glancing around, waiting for someone to break the ice that had settled upon the conversation. "So Mikasa, how is your latest case coming along?" Perhaps that would be a good way to start another conversation. Anything to alleviate the awkward aura was fine at the current point. Mikasa absently tapped the side of her red coffee cup thoughtfully with her fingernail, her pale gray eyes roaming around the room.

"It's going well. We've finished accumulating all the evidence needed in order to land the suspect a ten to fifteen year sentence." Levi glanced up at the mention of the case, his eyes on Mikasa. "Would that be the Elwood case?" Mikasa nodded and tapped the side of her cup again before she set it down on the end table beside her chair. "Yes. And thank you for the help you gave us on the case. You found some extremely important evidence to help us."

Levi shrugged and set his cup down on his knee. "Thank Hanji; she was the one to do the rape kit after all. The only thing I did was to suggest that you look for it considering the bruising around the wrists and mouth." He glanced over at Eren. "Do you think you'll have all of the data unencrypted by tomorrow morning?" "Probably," Eren said, shifting uncomfortably at the gray-eyed man's scrutiny. It felt more like he was being sized up like he was an object for sale rather than a person who had just been asked a question.

"It depends on how much has been encrypted and coded." Levi nodded, "Good… I'd rather not wait for ages for this to be over with." Eren felt his fingers clench unconsciously and he struggled to refrain from throwing punches. Irvin would not be very happy if he suddenly attacked one of his detectives, no matter how provoked Eren felt. It was the same way when it came to the spats between himself and Jean, that crazy ass bastard.

"So…" Armin said, reaching into his bag and pulling out a green tin in an attempt to distract the two males from exchanging more snarky remarks. "Who wants cookies?"

* * *

Eren leaned back on the couch, stretching his stiff arms and legs, cracking his fingers one by one. He rolled his neck from one side to the other, stretching out the tight muscles that had stiffened in the last eight hours. Levi had only stayed long enough to chat with Mikasa about her case and to ask Armin about a new invention the blonde was working on before departing with, throwing thanks over his shoulder on the way out.

Mikasa and Armin had left ten minutes after Levi. Eren could tell that Mikasa wasn't exactly pleased with how Levi was treating him but he shrugged off her worries and threats directed towards the shorter man. He just couldn't wrap his head around how civil Levi could be around everyone _excluding_ himself of course.

Eren leaned forwards once again, his eyes night-blind from staring at the laptop screens in total darkness since he had turned the lights out around six hours ago. He dropped his pencil down beside his computer. _If I never have to write anything else, it will be far too soon,_ he thought, flexing his hand slowly as the muscles screamed in relief, which had cramped to what felt like the point of no return from the long hours of copying down information. Admittedly, he could have just typed all of the information he had found so far but he was paranoid about his computer breaking down at the worst times, leaving him with nothing but excuses and hopes of getting his computer repaired for a cheap price without having to replace half of it and losing all of the memory on it.

One of the few good things that had occurred in the past few hours was that he had discovered that Masters had neglected to encrypt most of the information within the encrypted folders. Only three folders had encrypted data within them. Eren had pushed those to be run through last, allowing him to access the information immediately ready for examination.

Most of it was information on the Swedish Mafia, ranging from how to identify various sectors of the group to a list of contacts in case heavy-duty weapons or sixty pounds of cocaine were needed at any time. _Why anyone would need sixty freaking pounds of cocaine, I have no idea_, Eren thought, shaking his mouse and pulling up the copies of the information he had made. Levi and Irvin would probably want copies of all of it, not just the information that Eren had deemed important.

_So help me God, if I get any viruses on my laptop Levi will be paying for a new one. Three o'clock is an absolutely _lovely_ time to be awake._ Eren stood, leaving the laptops running. Breaker would hopefully finish within the next few hours, which would give Eren at least four hours of sleep. _I am _so_ glad I have a day off tomorrow,_ Eren thought as he stumbled through the dark apartment, hand outstretched so that way he could feel the walls before he ran face-first into them.

He found his bedroom within a few moments and threw himself on top of the haphazardly made bed, not bothering with turning the lights on, undressing, or getting under the covers. Eren shut his eyes and sank into the sweet, blissful surrender of sleep, letting the frustration and other pent-up emotions of the day dissipate into the air as a dark wave dragged him down.

* * *

Levi tapped his foot in irritation, glaring at Eren's door for a moment before raising his hand again to pound on the wooden door. He slammed his fist down four times, almost as if the door had committed a personal offense to him, before he raised his right hand in irritation, glancing at the watch. _It is 6:42. What the _Hell_ could that brat be doing!?_

He raised his hand again, ready to take out his irritation on Eren's door, hopefully by punching a hole through it, when it was pulled open. Eren poked his head out through the crack, revealing a face heavy with sleep and exhaustion, with deep bags under his green-gold eyes and hair like he had a rat nesting in it. "What?" Eren mumbled, covering his mouth to half-heartedly conceal a yawn. "I didn't request a wakeup call."

Levi snorted and rolled his eyes. "Wait, don't tell me. You stayed up all night having sex with strange women instead of actually working."

Eren stared at him uncomprehendingly for several long moments before his eyes widened and his face flushed, "W-what?" His voice shot up higher than normal, embarrassment and shock coloring the single word. "I can't believe you would think that. But no, I _didn't_ have sex. I was up till a couple of hours ago working… going through files… Most of what I wrote down is accurate… I think." The words were punctuated with yawns.

"Go get some sleep Eren. I can look over the files myself." Eren complied, turning around and leaving the door open behind him for Levi to come in as he staggered back into the apartment. Levi shut the door with a click, watching as Eren bumped into the back of the couch before clumsily hiking a leg over the back of it and pulling other leg over before he laid down. His feet ended up dangling over the arm of the couch, the only part of his body visible anymore. Levi rolled his eyes. _People these days…_

He examined Eren's apartment again, his eyes sweeping over the layout he had memorized for the most part the night before. There were two black chairs sitting on opposite ends of a darkly stained wooden coffee table with a gray couch between the two, facing the wall where a shelved stand stood, containing books, assorted picture frames, and a small, crappy looking television. Levi walked further into the small apartment, cautious of making any noise. He rounded the couch and glanced down at Eren; the boy was already out cold, his mouth parted slightly as he breathed slowly and rhythmically. Levi approached the bookcase, peering at the pictures with only slight interest.

One held the picture of a man and woman standing together, the man's arm wrapped around the woman. They had dark brown and black hair respectively, both with brown eyes and relatively tall. The man stared stoically outwards, a small smile tugging at the edge of his lips while the woman was smiling broadly, looking excited about something. _Probably his parents…_ Levi thought absently, his eyes sliding to another picture.

This one had the man and woman again, but this time it held two children, a boy and a girl. The girl was pale, with black hair that was cut about chin-length and cool gray eyes. The bright red scarf wrapped around her neck and the lower half of her mouth identified her as Mikasa. Every time Levi had seen her she was wearing that scarf, no matter how hot it got. The boy next to her was tan, his dark brown hair half-heartedly brushed out of the way of his green-gold eyes. _Definitely Eren,_ Levi thought. _Although I didn't know he and Mikasa were related… Adopted maybe? Or perhaps step-siblings… it's not my business either way._

He straightened up suddenly and turned away and looked at the coffee table. There were two laptops, one large and gray, and the other relatively small and a glossy black, sat side by side, a small pile of papers stacked somewhat neatly beside the black one, a textbook beneath them and a black pen on top. A small round vase painted a glossy black and stuffed with delicate white flowers sat behind the computers. They were probably a gift from a girlfriend, not that Eren seemed like the type to have a girlfriend, let alone one that could stand such an irritating brat like him.

Levi picked up the stack of papers and scanned the words at the top of the first page: **Gray laptop – Masters. Copies of all information located on my hard drive – will finish examining at a later point.**

Levi carefully picked up the gray laptop and set it down on the edge of the coffee table. He sat down in the chair in front of the laptop and put his ankle on his knee and skimmed through the pages. Most of it was eligible, but the further back his got, the more cramped and shaky the writing became until it resembled something along the lines of mostly unreadable scribbles, obviously done while Eren was half asleep. That coupled with the pen marks that trailed down the paper and the spots where letters suddenly jerked in directions they were normally not written in tipped Levi off.

_What an idiot_, Levi thought as he settled down to read through the papers. He glanced up at Eren and frowned. He sighed and set the papers back down so he could sneak through Eren's apartment, searching for the boy's bedroom. It took him a minute or two to locate the bedroom and another minute to extract a blanket from on top of the haphazardly-made bed. _Note to self: kill Irvin later for letting him force this case onto me._

* * *

There was something tickling Eren's nose when he slowly emerged from the cocoon of sleep, assaulting his nose like the sharp scent of coffee that hung in the air. Both brought the feeling of the need to sneeze to mind but it passed after a few moments. Whatever was tickling his nose was soft and fuzzy, made up of many strands. Eren opened his eyes and shifted slightly.

He looked down towards his nose first, his eyes crossing as he stared at the tasseled edges of the blanket that had been draped over his body. _Since when was I covered by a blanket? _There was a clunk, the sound of someone setting a heavy cup down onto a wooden surface. Eren raised his head and blinked blearily at the chair to the left of his head.

Levi sat in the chair, Master's laptop resting on his legs, the textbook balanced on the arm of the chair. Eren watched as Levi glanced up at the computer screen, the black pen in his left hand moving fluidly across the paper as he copied tidbits of information down. His eyes watched the hand move across the paper, oddly elegant for such a seemingly crass man like Levi. It was strangely hard to tear his eyes away. _I blame that on the stress of dealing with this guy._ Levi glanced up at him.

"You're awake." Levi set the pen down and put the textbook on the end table to the right of the chair, careful to not knock over the gray coffee cup and the small lamp with its cream-colored shade. "Good. It's almost noon." Eren sat up slowly, the blanket falling away from him. He ran his fingers through his hair, his eyes sliding over to Levi. The other man set Master's laptop on the coffee table and stretched, his joints cracking audibly. "Be ready in ten minutes. We're going down to the station."

Eren swung his legs off of the couch, tossing the soft emerald green blanket to the side and stood. "Is there any chance of eating lunch before we go?" Levi nodded and stood,

"Is Starbucks good with you? It's on the way to the station, which makes it slightly more convenient. Plus I refuse to eat fast food as a general rule."

"Sure, it doesn't matter to me," Eren said. "I'll be back in a moment." He ducked into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He leaned against the door and sighed, his eyes fixed on his ceiling. _I hate mornings… afternoons… days in general to be honest._

* * *

Eren picked at the cardboard encircling his cup, his eyes flickering from the white lid to Irvin and Levi, who were sitting at the same desk as yesterday, peering at Irvin's computer. _Apparently I have become the third wheel now that I am no longer useful. This is fucking fantastic. I should have just crawled back into bed for a few more hours. Fuck, I shouldn't have even bothered answering the door this morning._ Eren bit his lip, holding back a sigh of irritation.

He spun around in the chair, his head resting on the chair's back. The ceiling spun round and round and round, becoming a meaningless, slow-moving blur above him. "… en… ren… Eren… hey, earth to Eren!" Eren jerked to a stop, a foot catching on his leg. Eren jerked and his head snapped back, his eyes focusing on the irritated raven-haired man who was glaring at him.

"What?" His cheeks colored with embarrassment, turning a color that Eren was positive would not have looked out of place on Mikasa's scarf. Levi sighed and tapped the top of the desk, irritation almost visibly dripping from his pores.

"As I was saying," he growled, "Masters appears to have originated from the Swedish Mafia. More specifically, he was a part of the espionage unit, which is represented by a raven tattoo, typically located on the heel of the left foot. Apparently they sent him to infiltrate a gang, which he naturally refrained from mentioning by name. The gang he was infiltrating obviously realized that he wasn't actually one of them and had him disposed of."

"Wonderful," Eren said, "Was all of this in the last three folders?"

"Most of it," Levi said, his voice thick with exasperation. "We still don't know who or what group might be behind this though. The only concrete evidence we have is what Masters managed to dig up on his fellow mafia members. And there is also the slight problem of one of the folders still being encrypted. I suppose even your program has problems occasionally."

Eren's eyes shot over to Levi, boring into the side of the other man's head, who apparently failed to notice his shock. _That's odd... what kind of an encryption could he have put on it? I've never had a problem before… Maybe he used an eternity code. God, I hope he didn't._ That's_ going to be a bitch to work out._

Irvin leaned away from the desk and sighed, kneading his forehead with one hand as he glared at the laptop screen. "We don't have enough right now," he said, his perpetual frown deepening. "The only thing I really can do is notify the FBI and or the Swedish government about the information we have managed to acquire, no matter how little. The only problem is that when I do notify them, they'll take every copy of this information that they can get their hands on."

Levi ejected Eren's flash drive and held it out for Eren to take. "They won't get it all…" Levi said, "Not so long as we don't let them know about the flash drive."

"Um, is that technically legal?"

Both men looked at Eren. Irvin shook his head, smiling slightly, while Levi simply opted to stare at Eren, his gray eyes full of disdain, "Technically, no. Does it look like I care?"

**Chapter 2: End**

* * *

Alright guys, another chapter is out! I hope you all are enjoying it so far and I hope you continue to do so. Another chapter will be out within 2-3 days. I forgot to put this in the last chap but  
**I do not own SnK/AoT or the characters. Hajime Isayama bears all the rights to those.  
**Now that I've taken care of that, I bid you adieu.


	3. Second Case

**END GAME**

**Chapter 3: Second Case**

* * *

By Tuesday, three days after first starting the case, it was taken out of their hands and placed into the federal governments so that they could determine what should be done. The feds took everything; all of the copies, the notes, even Masters' body. The only thing left was the flash drive that Levi had returned to Eren, ordering him to keep it safe and to not lose it on what could assumed would be penalty of death.

"No Mikasa, I don't need you to come over. I think I can manage to make spaghetti by myself." Eren stirred the pasta, steam curling up through the air and warming his hand. Mikasa sighed, the noise sounding similar to static over the phone.

"Fine," she murmured. "Do you want to tak about your case at all?" Eren could tell she was still irritated with how Irvin had simply let the feds come in and tear the case away from them without a fight. She probably believed that they should have fought to the death in order to retain hold of the case. Or at least, that was what Eren thought. He had still neglected to tell her about the flash drive; he would get around to that eventually.

"No especially," he said and set down the spoon, watching the curls of steam ascend through the air. "It was just a case. What's so important about it?" It could have been the fact of that Eren had managed to remain more or less calm throughout the entirety of the case that set the alarms in Mikasa's head off. _Sometimes she is just too overprotective._

"No reason," Mikasa said, "It's just most people don't get along with Levi when they work cases with him." Eren snorted in amusement. It didn't surprise him that the short man rarely got along with people. If he didn't know better, Eren might have thought that Levi was part thorn bush; pretty to look at but dangerous to touch. _Since when was he pretty?_

"It was fine. He was fine. Trust me, I would have said something if I couldn't stand him. Besides, I doubt I'm going to get another case with him again. He seems more like the type to deal with murders and crap, stuff that wouldn't deal with hacking for the most part."

"You never know," Mikasa pressed, "Things aren't always as they seem. Plus what if you decide to become a detective? They do make more money than working at a bookstore and occasionally helping out at the station combined."

_Damn Mikasa and her logic. Then again, she wouldn't be a prosecutor if she wasn't both intelligent and intuitive. Hell, she could have gotten that basketball scholarship to Maryland if she hadn't insisted on going to the same college as me._ "I know, I know, but what does it matter? I'm doing fine right now." He pulled a spoon out and stirred the sauce, hoping that it hadn't burned to the bottom of the pot while he was distracted. Or that the noodles had clumped together in the adjacent pot. "So how is your newest case coming along? You just can't seem to take a break, can you?"

Mikasa scoffed, "Of course not. The case is coming along fine. We've managed to find enough evidence to incriminate both of the perpetrators. When I present it to the judge tomorrow they'll have no chance of walking away without a few years of jail time on them. They aren't going to have a fun time in prison. Rapists very rarely do." Eren laughed a little in agreement; one prisoner had actually killed another when he had found out that the latter had raped someone. "I'm almost tempted to ask whether they're going to give them a false conviction so that they aren't murdered in their sleep."

"That's great. I'm glad your case is going so well Mikasa I hope you get a good turnout. I've got to go now, but I'll text you later okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight Eren." Eren punched the 'End Call' button with his thumb and set the phone down on the counter so he could drain the pasta. The last time he had tried to talk on the phone and pour the boiling water into the sink had not ended well. It had instead ended with a slightly molten hunk of useless plastic and electronics and a trip to the phone store to acquire a replacement. He tilted the pot and watched the steam rise, floating upwards and enveloping his face before moving onwards.

He set the pot back down, his mind turning back to the case, and in turn, to Levi. He hadn't seen the detective since the second day on the case, when Levi had come into his apartment and he had passed out on the couch, oblivious to the world. _I should probably go down to the station tomorrow… Maybe he's come up with some news leads._

* * *

"Levi, loosen up a little!" Hanji chided, poking Levi incessantly in his right arm. He had already moved as far left as he could, but between the wall and Hanji pressing in from the sides and Irvin and Mike in front, their long legs blocking the under-table route, the only way to escape would have been over the back of the booth. _That_ would have been extremely undignified to say the least. Something he would have done years ago, before things had changed. "Levi," Hanji moaned, "Stop spacing out and join the conversation."

Levi glanced at her, his gaze icy as he ran the tip of his finger down his mostly untouched glass, condensation collecting on his finger. "Why would I want to do that? You idiots make enough conversation between yourselves to deafen a crowd." Perhaps he was exaggerating a little, but between the obnoxious patrons in various states of drunken stupors, the heavy thud of music, and the increasing volume of his three companions, a headache was beginning to form. That was with barely having touched any alcohol too. Or maybe it was just the itch for a cigarette that was dragging his mood down; he hadn't had any in three hours and he was feeling fit to murder.

"Oh come on Levi, could you at least tell us what you thought of Eren! Don't tell me that you scared the hell out of him. Although now that I think about it, he seemed to be more irritated or awed with you rather than terrified." Hanji stared at him, her brown eyes stretched wide as she waited on his response. Levi rolled his eyes and sipped at his whiskey. It wasn't his favorite but Irvin had insisted that he get something other than water, especially since bars didn't typically carry coffee or tea during the happy hours.

"What's there to talk about? He's just a little brat who didn't know what the fuck he was doing. I suppose he picks up fast though. Better than some of those other morons you've stuck me with." The last comment was accompanied with an irritated glare at Irvin, who smirked slightly at him.

"People skills are required Levi," he chastised. "A person cannot stay around three people only for the rest of his or her life. You need to broaden your circles and I'm simply trying to help you out."

"Help me out? More like torture me by sticking me with the most irritating people possible."

"Oh really," Hanji said, "You didn't seem to find Petra, Oluo, Gunther, or Erd irritating. And you've hardly said a bad thing about Eren so he must not have been all that bad.' A devious smirk was attached to her face, making her resemble the Cheshire cat in a strange way.

Levi was tempted to argue but it Hanji had backed him into a corner, figuratively and literally. He couldn't deny that none of the five she had mentioned had been so irritating that he refused to associate with them. He was tolerant of Erd, Gunther, Oluo, and Petra, who had come to call themselves the Special Operations Squad, or SOS, ever since they had worked a case with Levi. Eren was an odd exception; he had been infuriating yet intriguing in a way. The boy was hiding something, Levi was certain of it, and he was curious to find out what.

"Hello, earth to Levi," Hanji said, waving a hand in front of his face. Levi blinked several times, his steely gray eyes focusing on her hand. "Seriously Levi, you talk to the squad in the office, so why don't you go talk to Eren. Ask him if he wants to work another case with you."

Levi felt his eye twitch, both in irritation at the autopsy technician and in an increasing need to smoke in order to keep from punching the taller woman. "Hanji let me out." Hanji sighed but moved anyways, slower than what was strictly necessary, but she moved all the same. Levi made his escape from the black and red booth and pushed his way through the crowd of people.

The night air was a relief upon his face, the cool, damp air contrasting with the heat from inside. The cool, dark world outside was deafeningly silent compared to the obnoxious cacophony within the club, which he could still hear faintly through the stained glass windows, which someone had obviously thought would add appeal to the bar. It didn't really work, but the bar still drew in customers all the same.

He extracted a lighter from his pockets and lit the cigarette on the second try. He drew in a deep breath; the smoke flowing into his lungs and remaining there for several long moments before he let the smoke tasting of lemongrass pass his lips, floating into the chilly night air. _I really should beat Mike for even suggesting that I try these instead of normal cigarettes. They're too damn addicting to be good for me._

* * *

Eren bobbed his head up to the music pulsing from his stereo as he moved throughout his apartment, bouncing and sliding around in time to the music as he grabbed things as he passed by in an effort to straighten up once more. The band who was currently playing, Advancing Giants, was a relatively new one, but they had already topped the charts for three weeks in a row with their first single, "Silent Battlefield." The lead singer, Christa Lenz, had a startlingly strong voice for someone so who was so small and delicate-looking. That was also deceptive, especially considering some of the songs that she had written tended to center around death and destruction.

_"Lying here, this cold hard ground_  
_No one around, not a sound_  
_Where did all the people go?_  
_When did things get so low?_  
_There's no escaping now_  
_Trapped here, I'm not sure how_  
_The enemy keeps coming on_  
_Fight now until the dawn!_  
_Don't you dare yield_  
_On this silent battlefield_  
_The hearts we surrender_  
_Never come back to the sender_  
_As you're left here to be killed_  
_On this silent battlefield."_

Ymir, the mysterious woman in charge of the electric guitar, leapt into her solo, playing loud and proud, with startling exuberance. Valerie, the drummer, joined in after a short while, the beat of the drums sounding almost like cannon-fire.

Several short, rapid knocks pulled him back to the bitter reality that yes, there were other people aside from himself. Eren moved back across the room and turned the music down till it was barely audible and he moved back to open the door, the chain still on it preventing it from going very far. Slate gray eyes, bored and irritated, turned away from the door and focus on Eren. "Well, are you going to open the door or are you going to have me stand out here all damn day?"

Eren rolled his eyes but slid the chain out anyways, standing back so Levi could push the door open. Eren shut the door behind Levi as the shorter man moved further into the apartment to stand just behind the couch before turning around to stare at Eren. "Do you want me to make some coffee…?" Eren inquired, unsure of what to do.

Levi shook his head, "No need. I'm not planning on staying that long. I, ah, wanted to tell you that you did a decent job on the case. I also wanted to know if you've managed to work the file out yet." Silence stretched out for several long moments as Eren absorbed what Levi had said to him. For the first time since he had met the man, Levi had managed to utter three whole sentences without insulting him… as long as it was looked at somewhat abstractly. Something was definitely up. "Did someone force you into saying that?"

Levi's eyes instantly hardened into an irritated glare, turning an icy blue-gray with his change in mood. "Don't be such a damn uptight brat all the time and learn to take a compliment when it's given. But yeah... Hanji practically held me at gunpoint till I agreed to do this." _That's the Levi I know,_ Eren thought, a grin creeping onto his face. Levi stared at him, a frown on his face and his arms folded across his chest.

Eren's hand crept to the back of his neck, rubbing sheepishly at the bones at the base. "I haven't been able to break whatever sort of encryption Masters put on the file. I'm starting to think it's an eternity code, which takes, well, an eternity to break."

"Lovely," Levi said with a sigh. He leaned back against the back of the couch and titled his head back. "Until you manage to get into it would you like to work another case? If you're interested of course, it's not like I need another idiot trooping after me and screwing up my cases."

A laugh pushed its way past Eren's lips and he nodded. "Sure, I'd love to work another case. Oh, but my shift is starting in an hour or two so I won't be able to start yet. I can write my hours down for you and you can give me the file later." Levi nodded and Eren darted into his room. He yanked one of his desk drawers open, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and wrote carefully but quickly. Levi was still leaning against his couch when he emerged from his room, the piece of paper clutched in one hand.

He passed it to the gray-eyed man, who took it with surprising delicacy for someone with such a crass nature. "I put the hours and days I typically work, along with my cell in case you need to reach me about any new leads you might have."

Levi took it with a nod and pocketed it without paper, which Eren had folded for convenience. "I'll come by and bring you the file after your shift tonight, so don't slack off."

The door clicked shut before Eren could respond, leaving him alone in the quiet apartment once more, the only sounds coming from his pounding heart and the faint sound of music. _I must be getting sick,_ Eren thought, fingers brushing his burning cheeks as an idiotic grin spread across his face.

* * *

At three o'clock, two hours after Eren's shift started, Armin walked into the Inkblot, grinning from ear to ear. Eren glanced up when he heard the bell ring and stuck his tongue out at the approaching blonde. "Hey Armin, what happened? Did you get another patent or something?" Armin leaned up against the wooden counter and shook his head.

"No, at least I don't have another yet. But that's not what I came here to talk about. Do you remember Annie Leonhart from college? She was in our Literature class."

Eren rubbed his chin thoughtfully for several long seconds before the connection was made. "You're talking about the Annie that looked like she was a mixed martial arts champion _and_ could bash everyone's face in? Of course I remember her. A lot of people said she was intimidating but she was just really quiet. Almost unnervingly so, but she wasn't so bad once we started talking. Why do you ask?"

Armin nodded, "Yeah, that Annie. Well apparently she moved away after college for some reason but I suppose she's back now. I saw her at Joe's Coffee Shop down on Summerset Avenue. She recognized me and so I asked her if she might want to meet up sometime this week and catch up." A light dusting of pink coated Armin's cheeks as he talked.

Eren grinned deviously, "Looks like someone's got a crush." Armin gave an abashed smile before he buried his face into his hands.

"I can't help it," he said, "She was really nice to me and we really connected in the classes we had together. I always felt bad for not talking to her more but she always disappeared before I could get a chance to catch her."

Eren clapped his hand on Armin's shoulder and grinned at his friend, shaking his head in amusement. "Don't worry about it; I'm sure you'll be fine. Besides, it's not like Annie is going to dropkick you into next week. Just be nice to her and you'll be fine, that's how it usually works."

Armin sighed and let his head hit the top of the counter with a thud. The blonde's head remained there for several long moments before he brought his head back up. "Yeah, I'll try… Anyways, has Irvin given you anything new yet?"

Eren shook his head and rested his elbow on the counter, his wrist underneath his chin. "No, Irvin hasn't given me a new case, but Levi asked me if I wanted to take on another one with him. I agreed to, especially since I don't really have anything else to do."

Armin smiled, "I'm glad you two are getting along now. You really didn't seem to like him when we came over the other day." Eren rubbed the back of his head, smiling sheepishly.

"He's… okay once you get past the cactus-like personality. And the more or less constant flow of insults." Eren tapped the desk thoughtfully, "But once you get past all of that, I guess he's not so bad." Armin looked at him for a long time before a smile slowly crept up onto the boy's face. The blonde slapped a hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

"Eren, I think you might have found a personality to match your own. Alright, I've gotta go now otherwise Rico is going to bite my head off for being late. For an assistant she sure is terrifying. See you later Eren!" The bell attached to the door chimed behind Armin, waving madly at Eren as he left. Eren let his hand fall back to the desk. He picked up a discarded pencil and stared at it a moment before he began to spin it in his fingers, moving from one end to the other and back, again and again. _I wonder what he meant by that… Armin is so abstract sometimes._

* * *

Eren locked the Inkblot up behind him, the only lights left on inside the store being the emergency lights. The nights were starting to get colder and darker. Soon it would be completely dark at seven o'clock, with only the glow of the city and streetlights giving off light. Thin streams of vapor escaped his lips, floating up into the night air. He pulled out his phone and tapped a button, the soft blue glow washing up his face as he walked towards the end of the street. A text was waiting for him, one from an unknown number. He opened it and scanned the message, an unconscious smile creeping onto his face.

**From: XXX-XXX-XXXX  
Its Levi. Message me when your shift is finished.  
Received: Wed Sept 18, 3:35pm**

His fingers danced across the keyboard as he tapped out a message. He hit the send button as the crosswalk light changed to green. As he walked through the streets, no new messages arrived. He walked, white vapor leaking from his lips as he rubbed his numb fingertips together in his pockets. The city had grown quiet, the rumble of cars faded to a soft sound in the distance, the lights muted behind closed curtains.

He turned the last corner and his steps faltered when he saw someone standing in front of his apartment complex, their hands in the pockets of their jacket, their head turned upwards. Eren grinned and approached the ma, glad to see the already-familiar face. "Levi, I see you made it." Levi glanced over at him and shrugged his gray jacket clad shoulders before he looked back at the building.

"You took your sweet time getting here, didn't you?"

Eren rolled his eyes, "Sorry that I had to lock up. Hannah developed a stomach bug before her shift today and it was her day to close, so I offered to close instead. Is that a problem?" Levi sighed and followed Eren as they entered the building and ascended the steps to the third floor. Eren unlocked the door and pushed it open, "After you."

Levi nodded and walked into the room. He dropped the file onto Eren's coffee table and sat down in one of the black chairs, crossing his ankle and knee. Eren picked up the file and glanced at Levi before he opened the blue folder. He scanned the contents of the file.

The victim, a twenty-two year old male by the name of Eric Wilkes, had been found in his apartment earlier in the morning, a bullet wound going through one temple and out the other. It would have been classified as a suicide had it not been for the .45 pistol had been used and its location. Instead of being found in or near the victim's hand, the gun had been found under the couch. They were currently in the process of lifting and matching any prints that might have been left on the gun.

The apartment itself showed signs of a struggle; spots of blood had been left on the floor, but it was unsure of whether it was the attacker's or Wilkes' blood. The door to the apartment itself had been broken, with the lock ripped out of place and the doorframe had strips of wood torn from it. Zoe was handling the autopsy, and it was likely that she had already completed it.

"What time does the morgue close?" "It closed at seven. We'll have to go back in tomorrow, bright and early."

Eren groaned and let his head fall back on the back of the couch, the papers hitting his knees. "But mornings…" Eren moaned, "They're for sleeping in after long nights of watching TV and playing video games, not waking up at the crack of dawn. Especially now that I don't have school anymore!"

He raised his head and was met with a glare. "If you don't want the perpetrator to get away, I advise that you comply with my demands." Eren sighed but nodded all the same. "Should we go see the crime scene first of go to the morgue?"

Levi shrugged, "Probably the scene. The blood tests are expected back around noon, along with the matches for the fingerprints, if any at all were found. It would be more convenient to either be in the morgue or at the station, somewhere where we can get the information as soon as it comes in."

"Alright," Eren said, "So what time do you want to meet up in the morning?" _So help me God, if you say five AM, I swear I will murder you._

"Seven AM. If you procrastinate at all I will throw you out a window."

**Chapter 3: End**

* * *

I apologize for the slight delay in the uploading of this chapter. I had four games today and I am about ready to keel over and sleep for twenty-four hours. Chapter 4 will most likely be out on Tuesday, so I certainly hope you can wait that long for another chapter. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a nice night/day/life/existence.


	4. Watching The Tapes

**END GAME**

**Chapter 4: Watching The Tapes**

* * *

_Fingers dragged at his skin, pulling him backwards into the pit of darkness below. His own fingers scrabbled in the dirt at the edge of the pit, fighting for purchase on the loose gravel and dirt. Sharp stones dug into his fingers, drawing blood and making the rocks slicker than before. His foot caught on a ledge and he pushed himself up, inch by agonizing inch._

_The hands gripping him strained to keep him in, strong despite their emaciated appearance, with every bone and vein visible beneath the pale and translucent skin. Dirt-crusted nails dug into his flesh, drawing blood and sending it trickling down his legs. The bony fingers pulled him downwards, and the voices raked his ears, hoarse and scratchy, like the owners of the voices had not used them in years. "Eren… Eren… don't leave us… Eren… stay with us… forever…"_

_Eren tried to let out a scream but nothing would leave his uncooperative throat. It constricted around his words, locking them in and forcing them back down. He threw his hand up, fighting for purchase further onto the slope. A hand grabbed his, the first time since this particular nightmare had begun to occur. He looked up, his face a mask of shock and fear._

_His eyes met piercing gray ones, locking for what might several infinite eternities but could have easily only been mere seconds before he felt himself rising from the pit of darkness and despair. The bony hands still gripped his feet, but for the first time, he was standing on solid ground._

Eren's eyes opened agonizingly slow, the last remnants of the dream melting away as the light assaulted his eyes. He groaned and rolled away from the window, slamming his hand down on his alarm clock. _Five more minutes,_ he thought,_ I need five more minutes…_ The alarm went off five minutes later and Eren hauled himself from his bed, longing for the warmth and serenity that resided between the sheets before he had completely extracted himself from the blissful cocoon he had enveloped himself with during the night. The hardwood floors were cool to the touch, but Eren paid no mind to the chill.

He pulled a towel from the haphazardly stacked pile in the closet and shut the door to the bathroom, turning the knob until steam began to rise above the stream of water. He stripped and stepped into the shower, standing under the hot rush of water. Eren stared blankly at the wall as the burning water washed over his skin, his forehead scrunched with concentration. There was a sense of unease and darkness lingering at the back of his mind, a corruption that festered on his mind like it was an open wound.

It dragged at his mind, a constant throughout the years despite the fact that so many things had changed so dramatically. He shivered despite the heat of the shower and shut his eyes, running his hands along his arms for a moment before crouching down and plucking the small, thin razor blade from behind the bottle of conditioner.

* * *

Wilkes' corpse was lying on the metal autopsy table, his torso exposed to show the black stiches stretching across the pale flesh. Eren was immensely glad that Zoe had cleaned the bullet wounds so that bits of bone, brain, and blood were not immediately visible. That didn't stop Levi from pulling on a pair of gloves and probing either of the wounds though, which caused a semi-clear liquid to ooze from the wounds. "Brain matter," Zoe said cheerily when she saw Eren blanch, "I guess I didn't manage to get everything out. Levi, here's the tray. They found the bullet lodged in the wall if you want it."

The bullet itself had been left as it, still bearing a coating of blood, bone, and white powder from its impact with the plaster walls. Levi glanced at the bullet for a moment before he turned back to Zoe. "When is the blood work due to come in?"

Zoe glanced at her wrist, a force of habit considering there was no watch on her wrist. "It's due to come in at about eleven thirty or so," Zoe said before she glanced up at the clock hanging on the white walls. "You guys still have fifteen minutes before they come in. Do you want to help me with an autopsy Eren?" Eren blanched to a ghostly color again.

"I'd rather not. Thank you though." Zoe leaned in close, her forehead mere inches from his.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to learn about the human body and the various ways through which a person dies? I have a very interesting new case that just came in this morning. A thirty-two year old male who was in perfect health suddenly dropped dead on the streets. I'm thinking he was poisoned but I can't be sure about which kind until the lab work comes back. But judging by the state of his organs, he had something nasty in him. You should have seen it; the stomach was riddled with holes and there was blood where blood normally should not be. Oh, and I had a case one time where-"

"Hanji, would you shut it?" Eren let out a sigh of relief when Levi came to the rescue from what he could tell would have turned into an extensive one-sided conversation. Eren leaned up against the wall, crossing his arms and putting one foot against the wall as they began to wait. Levi stood a few feet away, his arms crossed and rocking back and forth on his feet every now and then. Zoe disappeared into her office, where they could hear her humming idly as she shifted through papers, her indistinct blur of a form moving behind the frosted glass.

The sound of a fax machine running altered them first. Zoe emerged from her office a few moments later, clutching the papers, her eyes scanning over the contents quickly. She wordlessly handed the papers to Levi, who glanced at them for a moment. "How long will it be till they expand the search to a nationwide examination?"

"They've already started," Zoe said, "The results of the expanded search should be in within about five hours. That includes the prints and blood work, as nothing local raised a flag."

Levi sighed and tapped his elbow impatiently, his usual frown deepening on his face. "Typical…" he muttered, irritation crossing his face. He pulled the gloves from his hands and threw them in the disposal bin. "Hanji, you know what to do. Call me as soon as you get any word. Till then Eren and I will go through the tapes of the scene. Maybe something will turn up."

* * *

The viewing of the tapes began with Levi and Eren only. Before they had even gotten through the first ten minutes of the tape, Petra, Oluo, Erd, and Gunther all situated themselves around the television screen, crowding the already cramped room. It was a tight fit; they were all knee-to-knee, hip-to-hip, with Eren crammed between Levi and Petra. Eren was thankful that Jean was unwilling to come within five feet of him most of the time and that there was no room for anyone else. He doubted he could have stood being in the same room as that horse-faced bastard, especially in _this_ room at the current time.

They sat in the dark room, cramped and hot, their eyes trained on the screen and the black and white video of disgusting quality that it showed. "Tch," Oluo said, "Why don't you just have the brat look at them by himself? I'm sure even a complete novice like him could come up with something."

"Shut up Oluo," Petra snapped, "No one asked for your opinion you moronic wannabe! Honestly, and you still question why nobody likes you." Oluo huffed in response and opened his mouth to argue, but a glare from Levi shut the both of them up.

"No one asked for commentary from either of you," he said, his voice deceptively calm, like the ocean often is before a monstrous storm. "If anyone else makes a comment not pertaining to the video you can get your sorry ass out of here." The room fell silent once more as they focused back in on the video feed.

_The time stamp on the video is six fifty PM… the body wasn't found until nine o'clock the next morning. Zoe put the time of death around six in the morning, when all of his neighbors had already left for their shifts._ Eren flipped the file open once again, glancing at the information of Wilkes' schedule. Levi elbowed him when the edge of the folder and Eren crossly adjusted it. _Midnight, he returned home from his shift at Club Ecstasy… It could have been a neighbor, but they all have relatively solid alibis for the approximate time of death._

He sighed and picked at the fresh red lines on the inside of his left wrist as he mulled over the possibilities. Levi sped the tape up another notch. The people on screen were darting around on the screen now, going about their business. As the hours on the time stamp ticked by the people occasionally filtering in began to dissipate until only one or two people came in every hour or so.

Levi slowed the tape down again near three o'clock and they watched the screen, scanning for any shadows that might be a person. No one appeared on camera till the time stamp read nearly five twenty-five. Three people left the elevator; two boarded. One of the boarding people, a man, hid his face so that the only things they could clearly see consisted of the blue Dodgers cap and what appeared to be a black bomber jacket, his hands rammed into the pockets.

"Get the tapes labeled 'Elevator 3' and '3rd Floor,'" Levi demanded. He held out one hand for the tapes, using the other to stop the video and eject the tape from the player. Erd extracted the tapes from the small container of tapes that the landlord had given them, passing the two tapes down till they rested in Levi's outstretched palm. Levi set the previous tape onto the counter next to the television and inserted the one of the elevator. They waited in silence as Levi fast-forwarded the video feed to five twenty-five.

Their eyes were glued to the screen as the man boarded the elevator alongside the woman; they pressed different buttons. The man kept his head down, carefully avoiding the eye of the camera. Levi fast-forwarded it once more. The man left the elevator before the woman. He returned to the elevator at six thirty AM. Levi removed the second tape and inserted the third. "Why bother?" Oluo said with a smug look on his face, "It's obviously him."

"There's always a point to the things I do," Levi said, his voice soft. "Would you rather arrest the wrong man and allow the perpetrator more time to escape or would you rather catch the right man the first time around? You decide." Oluo flushed with embarrassment, darkening when he saw Petra's satisfied smirk. Eren smirked at Oluo's discomfort before he allowed his eyes to return to the video. To say that they were actually on the video was not quite correct though. He eyes tended to stray over towards Levi, watching the other man's eyes dart around as he analyzed the video. Eren tore his eyes away once more and focused them onto the video feed.

The man with the Dodgers cap exited the elevator and strode down the hall, stopping at the fifth door on the right; apartment 16B, the victim's apartment. Eren watched as the man fumbled with the handle and lock for a moment, his head still down and his movements hidden blocked from the camera but still obvious. He pushed the door inwards and shut it. The door did not open again till a little after six twenty, when most of the people in the apartment complex would have left in order to arrive at their shifts on time. The man slipped up momentarily on his way out, but it was enough; he glanced up at the cameras for little more than a second.

Levi stopped the tape for the final time and looked at Eren, a bored expression spread across his face. "That's our perp. Do you agree or do you believe that he is not?" Eren nodded, "That's him. Once we get the prints and lab work back, we can attach a name to the face and start searching for him." Levi nodded and turned the television off. "Now," he said, "Everyone get the hell out of here and go do something useful."

* * *

Levi leaned against the brick wall in front of the police station, a cigarette between his fingers and his phone in his hand, debating whether or not to call Hanji, Irvin, or neither of the two. There were times when he could deal with them and times when he flat out refused to. He raised the cigarette to his lips, breathing in and watching as the end smoldered down a little further, inching its way towards his fingers.

His eyes roamed over the streets and the brownstone building lining them. People walked along the sidewalks, oblivious to everything except for when their attention was least desired. _Morons, _Levi thought, _useless, the lot of them. _He sighed and leaned his head up against the bricks as he took another drag of the cigarette, the taste of lemongrass filling his mouth. The sky above was gray, ribbed with darker streaks of gray. Whether it would rain or not, Levi wasn't sure. He hadn't even bothered to glance at the weather that morning.

He tapped the screen of the phone impatiently, waiting for Hanji to call about the lab work. _How long can it possibly take to get the lab work? _The phone began to buzz in his hands and he tapped the accept button. "Anything turn up Hanji?"

_"Yeah, I just got the reports in a few minutes ago. I can fax them to you and talk while they print. The man's name is Charlie Marion, born June sixteenth, nineteen-eighty-four. He was reported missing when he was twelve, but has been seen periodically throughout the states. He's been arrested twice on accounts of assault. I'm including the last picture of him that was captured so that way you can see if you recognize him from the footage."_

"Good," Levi said. He dropped the cigarette onto the ground and smothered it with his foot. "I'll go in and look at the papers now."

_"You're welcome, Levi."_ He could practically hear the smirk that he knew would be all across Hanji's face at the moment. She hung up and Levi pocketed the phone and pushed the door to the station in.

He pulled the papers from the fax machine and glanced at the textual information before skipping straight back to the image of the man. Levi glanced around. _Where the hell is Eren?_ There, he could see the other man talking to Petra, both of them laughing about something. Levi felt his eye twitch with irritation, which had become relatively common since meeting Eren. "Eren, get over here."

The call was not a request, more of a demand. Eren looked up and said something to Petra before he made his way over to Levi. Levi handed Eren the papers, "Tell me, does this look like our perp?" Eren looked at the mug shot that Hanji had managed to find, one from an arrest in 05, nearly eight years ago.

"I'd have to see a screenshot of the video again to be sure, but I think this is him." He shuffled through the papers, examining the rest of the information. "It had better be him; otherwise we've screwed the case up. Now we just have to find the idiot."

* * *

The searches began once they had confirmed the suspect's identity. For a solid week they searched through the numerous districts of Eden, airing the two images of Marion on the news channels and even carrying out a manhunt for the perpetrator. Nothing had turned up. All of the tips that had come in had merely been false hopes of finding Marion, who seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth as easily as he had disappeared the first time.

"Damn," Eren groaned, slumping on one of Armin's chairs in the blonde boy's kitchen, his eyes rolling around in boredom and agitation. "Another failure of a case… This fucking sucks." Armin shrugged with an encouraging smile on his lips.

"Don't worry Eren, everyone had problems. I'm sure that even Levi doesn't have a perfect record when it comes to catching the criminals." Armin looked back down at the metal in his hand, running his fingers along the smooth surface. "Even I don't have a flawless idea of this. Everyone expects me too, but I still can't figure out how to get the gears working in order to allow the cables to leave the bars and return just as far without something else breaking. It's just a matter of time. I'm sure everything will work out."

Eren sighed and sat up, tapping the kitchen table carefully. Nuts, bolts, gears, wrenches, and God knows what else were strewn about on the smooth wooden surface. "That's because you're practically a genius Armin, not a mechanic. You could barely fix your bike last year when the chain popped out on your way to my place."

Armin winced at the mention of that incident. "Yet, but since then I've been studying and practicing! I'm getting better, I swear! Soon the 3-D Maneuvering Gear will be a success, I swear! Now pass me that wrench by your elbow." Eren smiled and rolled his eyes but passed the wrench to Armin all the same.

He returned to staring at the wall, still feeling irritated despite Armin's assurances that things would get better. Sometimes, he found it hard to believe that _anything_ would get better. When was the last time things had actually seemed to be looking up for the long term? How long had it been since there had been any peace in his mind, since he had started to hide the turmoil of his mind? _A rhetorical question_, Eren thought to himself. _Do I really want it answered? No, probably not. Who would want an answer to something as depressing as that? Still… I can't help but wonder sometimes when I'll ever figure out what the hell ever happened to change things so much. Maybe it was Mom… maybe it was Dad…_

There was something moving in front of his face, distinctly flesh-colored rather than the white of the wall. "Earth to Eren," Armin called, "Don't tell me you went to the moon. Honestly Eren, where is your attention today?" Eren shrugged as both a non-committal gesture and one to himself, one to shrug away the creeping sense of darkness that preyed on his mind like vultures on a carcass.

_Lovely imagery,_ he thought sarcastically. "I don't know. I'm just tired I suppose. I didn't sleep well last night." The latter of the two sentences was true at least; dark nightmares, muddy and confusing in morning, had been plaguing him as of late. _Should I tell him…? No… better not. He's got enough on his mind as is. He doesn't need my troubles weighing on him too._

"I was asking when Mikasa was supposed to get here so that way I knew when to start cleaning the table off unless you guys don't care about where we sit." Armin gestured to the array of objects that littered the kitchen table.

Eren glanced at the clock on the stove; 6:45 PM. "She'll be here in about ten minutes. We all know that you'll just go straight back to the maneuvering gear once we leave so there's no point in you packing up. You're too obsessed with your work sometimes."

Armin fell silent, his hands falling still until he was simply rolling a screwdriver between the tips of his index fingers and thumbs. "Actually…" Armin said, "I was going to go to The Coffee Bean to meet up with Annie at eight…"

Eren looked at his friend, a smile spreading across his face. "Why the hell didn't you tell us earlier? Honestly Armin, you act like we're going to hate you forever for ditching us to meet up with a girl."

Armin smiled, the smile being hesitant and nervous. "It's not like it's a date… We're just going to talk really. Nothing more so far as I know." Eren smirked and leaned back in the chair, tipping it back onto two legs and rocking back and forth idly.

"Sure, sure… well, since Mikasa is already on her way and I'm already here, there's no helping it now. Seriously though, next time just tell us." Armin nodded as three soft knocks came from Armin's door. "I've got it," Eren said, letting the chair fall forwards with a thump before he rose.

Mikasa was waiting on the other side of the door, a bag in each hand. The scent of the Chinese food that Mikasa had with her filtered through the air, with the scents of curry mixing with that of the sesame chicken and the egg rolls. "Mikasa, you are my savior." Mikasa gave a small smile; her hands were too full to allow her to pull her scarf up to hide it, leaving it visible to the world. Eren took the bag with the drinks from her and deposited them on the coffee table in the living room. Armin joined them a moment later, a pencil still behind his ear.

"Mikasa, you read my mind," he breathed as he threw himself down on the couch beside of the black-haired girl. Eren sat down on the other side of Mikasa and they all sat back to relax and talk about anything and everything as they dug in.

_It's times like these that I love…_ Eren thought as he watched Armin and Mikasa laugh and smile about something respectively. _Its times like these that make me think that everything is alright._

**Chapter 4: End**

* * *

Hello darlings~ I come bearing gifts in the form of another chapter for you all. I apologize that it took me a little longer than initially planned, but due to time constraints, I was unable to finish the chapter until a few moments ago. Chapter 5 is already in the works but don't expect to see it for a few days. Until then, I thank you profusely for reading and hope you continue to enjoy _END GAME_!


	5. Chit Chat

**END GAME**

**Chapter 5: Chit Chat**

* * *

"Jean, I swear to God, I am going to _murder_ you one day." Eren dropped the books down onto the counter of the desk with a heavy thump, his voice a snarl of irritation and his face a mask of semi-murderous rage.

Jean smirked as he leaned over the desk, his fingers twined with Marco's as he scribbled idly on a piece of paper. "Jäeger, Jäeger, calm it down you idiot." Eren felt his eye twitched in scarcely repressed fury as he turned away with a huff.

"Jean, stop antagonizing my employees," Marco chided in his usual kind and gentle manner, the complete opposite of Jean's abrasive personality. It was almost like someone had taken two similar ends of a magnet and forced them together, yet they somehow stayed together when the hands had been taken away, defying all logic and reason. _How those two ever managed to work out their relationship, I will never understand. There's gotta be someone working a miracle for Jean._

Eren glared at the ash-blonde man, who was still clad in his dark blue police uniform, "Eren, just be a good little boy and put your toys away." The words were accompanied with a gesture to the stack of books that Eren was in the midst of shelving. Eren felt his eye start to twitch around the corner, a loathing scowl creeping onto his face.

"Jean… we are the _same exact age_ so do not call me 'little boy.'" Jean shot him a snarky smirk before turning back to Marco, a moony look on his face. _Stupid, useless bastard,_ Eren thought, snatching some of the books up and turning with barely suppressed rage. _One of these days I am going to murder him. I seem to be thinking that a lot lately. Not just about Jean though, surprisingly enough. _He moved throughout the bookstore, shelving books and doing his best to ignore Jean and his obnoxious comments.

They often antagonized each other, but there were times when either one of them went too far or Eren simply couldn't stand the horse-faced bastard. It could have been the way that Jean took his police work so carelessly that infuriated Eren or it could have just been that their personalities were too abrasive for them to get along. The way that Jean just didn't seem to care about anything with the police force truly irked Eren, which stirred up more fights between the two of them than any other person that Eren knew.

That was including Mikasa and their little fights about how Mikasa really should stop trying to baby him every step of the way. Either way, it didn't really matter. What mattered was getting paid, and if he had to deal with Jean's crap a little more than usual, he could manage it, even if it killed him. Eren wandered back over to the counter, which was bare of books to be shelved and vacant of customers. Hannah sat behind the desk, chewing gum and playing some _Jewel Star_-esque game. Marco and Jean talked in hushed tones, small smiles passing between them.

There was nothing to do; he was all out of things to do in the bookstore and since the Marion case had dropped a week prior, Eren had managed no contact with Levi. He couldn't help but wonder what the irritable man was doing that would prevent the contact of another case. _Maybe he's found a partner who can actually help him with a case. God knows Petra, Oluo, Gunther, or Erd would jump on the first chance to work another case with him._ It was odd how bored and lonely he felt without the presence of Levi, which he had quickly come to familiarize himself with. Everything just seemed a little more boring without the fierce and angry man there to liven up the monotonous days.

Eren shook his head and moved to the front door of the bookshop, eyes fixed on something not actually there, dragging his thoughts away from the previous track they had been occupying. The sunset was somewhat visible through the skyscrapers and buildings that filled the city, with streaks of orange, red, and gold visible up through the sky before the soft yellow shifted to a soft blue which gradually turned into the midnight hue of night. Stars weren't visible in the city often; there was too much smoke and pollution for that most of the time.

_How long has it been since I left the city…?_ The thought was idle, a wandering question that came and went at a moment's notice. _It's too suffocating here... There's no freedom… no escape… Sometimes, I really do hate it here. It's like we're living in a cage engineered by the leaders, and we're expected to live, nice and content, within the city limits. It's like we're never supposed to leave the invisible walls that are the city limits._ Eren sighed and pressed his forehead up against the cool glass. He'd have to clean that later, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. Sometimes, it felt like there wasn't much to care about anymore, whether it was work or simply getting out of bed in the morning. Everything was just not as easy as it had once been in the innocent childhood he had left behind so many years ago.

Eren sighed and pulled his head away from the window and let it hit the pane again. His eyes were fixated on the darkening sky, with the scratch of a moon dangling overhead in the darkness that was quickly descending upon the city.

* * *

Eren pulled a long sleeved shirt on, a green one with a cross-like intersection of black lines over his heart, over his head, tugging it down, his movements hurried. _Damn it, I'm late!_ He could hear the chastising he would get from Mikasa already, comments of "why were you late, Eren," and "did someone try to hurt you on your way here?" _She's too over protective sometimes._

He yanked on a pair of jeans and smashed his feet into a pair of white tennis shoes. He took a second to pull the backs of the shoes from beneath his heels as he wedged his phone into his pocket next to his wallet. _I really should stop procrastinating._ He grabbed his keys and pulled his green jacket off the hook, tugging it on as he shut and locked the door behind him.

Too impatient to bother with the elevator, he crashed down the stairwell, narrowly avoiding breaking his neck at least twice. It was a good thing that not many of his neighbors took the stairs, otherwise Eren would definitely have run into at least one person. He took a flying leap from halfway up the last flight of stairs, landing in a crouch on the white-and-black speckled tiles. He managed to make it out of the building before his phone began to vibrate, accompanied with a short burst of "Not Gonna Die" by Skillet. He extracted his phone as he weaved his way through the semi-crowded streets, filled with the final rush of people making their way home before darkness descended upon Eden. "Hey Mikasa, what is it?"

_"So I can assume that you aren't lying in the back of some alley, stabbed to death and mugged. That's good. We were wondering where you were. Connie and Sasha are getting impatient."_

"Well tell them that they can wait five more minutes," Eren said with a grin. "It's not going to kill Connie to wait five more minutes. Sasha… well, you'll just have to hope she doesn't either throw a rebellion or start considering cannibalism. Seriously though, I'll be there in a few minutes."

_"Alright, Eren, I'll make sure they wait. We've only just gotten the drinks out. I'm sure we can hold Sasha off the food for a few more minutes at least. You'd better hurry though."_

The call dropped and Eren picked up the pace, practically sprinting through the streets, dodging past people. More than one yelled at him after several near collisions.

He halted at the edge of the sidewalk, impatient for the pedestrian light to change. He would have leapt out across the clear street except for a close incident involving him nearly getting flattened by a Hummer. _That_ had been and experience _and_ had earned him a long discussion with Mikasa about street smarts and various other ways to be safe. It had been a solid three-hour talk. Each and every time she managed to find out about the close calls. It was nothing if not a process he didn't wish to repeat again; especially considering how the last one had went, and that time he had only accidentally cut his finger.

The light changed and he barely spared a glance both ways before he darted across the street and continued onwards. He passed shops closing for the night, lights turning on to combat the seven o'clock nightfall, and people locking their doors for the night. Colored blocks of light appeared on the walls, lights hidden by multicolored curtains. Eren glanced up at the sky; light blue fading to midnight blue, with a small smattering of only the brightest stars visible in the sky. Wisps of gray clouds scudded across the sky, passing across the moon and visible stars with speed. A sharp gust blew through the city, biting its way through Eren's jacket and sending him shivering. _And to think that I was complaining it was too hot just last week!_

He turned the corner and glanced at the numbers of the doorsteps. He ascended the steps of apartment 22C and knocked on the door. He could hear the thud of music from outside of the building, pulsing through the door. They _might_ be able to hear him through overtop the music, but one could never know. The door jerked open, revealing a small tan-skinned boy with a buzz cut close to his head. "Eren, you made it!" "Hey Connie,"

Eren said, a grin spreading across his face. "Did you guys start without me?" Connie shook his head and moved back, letting Eren step in out of the cold wind and into the cocoon of warmth inside.

"Not at all Eren," he said, "We just broke out the booze." Eren rolled his eyes and shed his coat, tossing it onto the overloaded coatrack, which swayed with the new addition, wobbling precariously before regaining its balance. Connie's apartment was crammed full of people, most of them being members of the police force. Mina, Sasha, Nanaba, Nac, Marlo, Zoe, and Francis were able to be picked out instantly amongst the crowd. He spotted Armin's blonde hair after a moment, standing next to a taller blonde woman, who stared down at him, her face void of expressions. Eren moved into the group, sliding his way to Armin and the girl.

"Hey Eren, I'm glad you got here. We were thinking you weren't going to show." It was hard to believe that Armin's smile could get any bigger but he managed it. He looked genuinely happy tonight, something that Eren was pleased about. "You remember Annie right? It's been what, two years?" Annie nodded at Eren, her face as blank as it had always been since the first day they had met.

"I'm glad to see you again Annie," Eren said with a grin, clapping his hand onto her shoulder. She stared at his hand as he spoke to her, the look on her face saying she was somewhat miffed as to why his hand was still there and if he could please get it off. "How's it been going since you left?"

Annie shrugged, looking uncomfortable at the increased attention. "Fine… Reiner, Bertholdt, and I managed to get promoted so they relocated us back to Eden a few weeks ago."

"Speaking of Reiner and Bert, where are they?" Jean chose then to butt his head into the conversation, Marco on his heels. Reiner had been someone that everyone could befriend once you got past the tough exterior and down to the friendly interior. Bertholdt, while quieter, was equally intimidating on first glance, was even more soft-hearted than Reiner, but he was more socially awkward. Less so that Annie, but Reiner was the only one of the group that could come close to qualifying as the 'social butterfly' of the group.

"They're showing up a little late… They had something to take care of." Jean and Marco disappeared after a few moments more of conversation with Armin and Annie, Mikasa appearing in their place, bearing a red plastic cup, which she thrust into Eren's hand. "Here, I got you some punch."

Eren took a tentative sip and grimaced at the taste; grape punch with just a dash of vodka. It was just like Connie to spike the punch whenever they were having a party, no matter how many people bothered to show up. "Mikasa, you know I don't drink."

Mikasa shrugged, "Connie assured me there wasn't too much in it so don't worry. Sides, it's not like anyone is driving." Eren stuck his tongue out at Mikasa but drank a little more all the same, more for show than for a want to get drunk.

Sasha catapulted by, a baseball cap pulled backwards on her head, a crazed look in her eyes, and a roll sticking out of her mouth, "Weff goft ood!" Armin grabbed Sasha's shoulder, jerking her to a halt. "Sasha, translate please." Sasha held up a finger and somehow worked the rest of the roll into her mouth, chewing for a moment before she swallowed and focused her eyes back on Armin with a grin.

"We've got food!" She darted off again, most likely in search of more food to fulfill her ever-present appetite. That girl alone could pack away an unbelievable amount of food for someone her size, which lead to Connie constantly joking about how when her metabolism slowed down, she was going to find it hard to stay the size she was now.

Mikasa rolled her eyes at the back of the brown-haired woman's head. "Sometimes, I wonder how she ever managed to get through the police force academy." "She never gave up," Eren said simply, watching her go. He could still remember the time that she had been ordered to run for five hours straight for something that he couldn't even remember anymore. Sasha had run every minute of it, practically keeling over with exhaustion by the end of it, but proud that she had accomplished it. Needless to say, even old Keith Shadis, their trainer, had been impressed.

Eren raised the cup to his mouth again, a smile flickering onto his face once more as he returned to the conversation that Armin, Annie, and Mikasa had continued on without him. _Maybe it was a good thing to get out tonight._ The door opened again and cries of "Reiner," began to flow throughout the room. Eren waited for Reiner to make his way over to their little group before he bothered to speak over the thrum of the speakers.

"Hey Reiner, it's good to see you again!" Reiner looked at all of them, one of his customary small but elated smiles bright on his face. "I thought Bert was gonna be coming with you?"

Reiner shook his head, "No… Bert had some business to attend to. Something came up at work so he stayed late to finish it." The muscular blonde accepted a blue plastic cup from Connie, who disappeared again after passing the cup along.

"What do you guys do for work?" The question came from Armin, who looked back and forth between Annie and Reiner, eager and expectant to find out how their friends had been doing since leaving Eden two years ago.

"Bert and I code stuff for programs for our company, Rose Software. We're supposed to be writing a program to help the databases run smoother, but glitches keep coming up in Annie's beta group."

"That sucks," Armin said, practically having to shout to be heard. "You know, I could probably look at it for you if you want. I might be able to help." Reiner's smile grew bigger, "That'd be cool of you Armin. It'd be a real life saver, but I think Bert might get it figured out by tonight. If not, I'll let you know." Armin nodded and grinned around at Eren, Mikasa, Annie, and Reiner. "Mikasa, are you still into law?"

Mikasa nodded, tugging her scarf over her mouth. "Yes, I am. I just completed another case yesterday – the men received a verdict of ten years." Reiner clapped his hand to Mikasa's shoulder, his grin broadening.

"I'm glad to see you're still into that. Some people can't take law school, and I can certainly understand why." Mikasa simply nodded at his comment, her head sinking further into her scarf out of reflex. Eren turned his head when he heard someone shout. Connie was standing on top of one of his tables, his cheeks a little flush and his eyes wide. "Who's ready for some beer pong?!"

* * *

_Bite down now, there's nothing to be afraid of. It won't hurt, it never does. That blood he can taste, it's not real. There's no taste of copper and iron in his mouth. There's no pain in his hand, right below his thumb. Why would he bite his own hand? Besides, he knows that there's a reflex that prevents a person from biting through their own skin most of the time; a person could bite through their own pinky yet their brain won't let them. Maybe the same thing applies here. Maybe he's just imagining it. But is he imagining the dark pit, the endless, fathomless abyss just in front of his unsteady feet?_

_Is he imagining the screams that float up from the void below, breaking down his barriers and revealing the truths long-since hidden. _Destroyer,_ they cry,_ monster, murderer, heathen, their, devil, beast, creature._ They've been screaming for years now; he can't remember exactly when they started. It was just one voice, one taunt at first. Then they began to multiply till there were too many to count, too many to distinguish._

_They begged for him to give himself over to them, for once and for all._

_To take that final step into the oblivion, the step he was oddly reluctant to take._

_The step that would take him towards the end of everything he had ever known._

* * *

Eren opened his eyes to his dark room. His head was pounding and the sound of a fist slamming into his door did not help his hangover in the slightest. For someone who didn't drink, Eren had certainly gotten hammered the night before. It had become a blur at around eleven. He couldn't even remember getting home, much less getting to his own bed. Maybe Mikasa had helped him back. She usually did at times like those, when he let the alcohol get the best of him, something he truly despised doing.

The pounding on the door increased in volume and tempo. "I'm coming," Eren called, gripping his head as he slowly pulled himself from bed. His feet caught in his covers and he smashed into the floor, only his hands preventing him from slamming his head into the wood floorboards and sending him into a whole new world of pain. He rose slowly and stumbled out in the living room. The knocking continued, impatient and furious. It was familiar, but in his hangover-blurry mind, Eren couldn't place who the knocking might belong to.

"You can stop now, I'm coming," he called through the door as he fumbled with the lock and chain. He opened the door and blinked at the man standing in the doorframe.

Levi stood, one hand on his hip, clutching a folder, the other dangling by his side, still clenched in a fist. He was wearing a steel gray shirt that matched his eyes and black slacks, with dressy black shoes on his feet. Levi looked oddly dressed up for what could easily have been simply visiting a coworker at the most inopportune of times. Levi seemed to have a knack for doing that to Eren. Or waking him up when he was either sleep-deprived or had a pounding head. It was almost like the other man just _knew_ what times would be most inconvenient for him to show up. Aside from that, it was amazing that Levi had managed not to wake one of Eren's neighbors yet with his explosive knocking, which could easily have been mistaken for cannon fire to an inattentive person, the category under which half of Eren's neighbors could fall.

"About bloody time," Levi snapped, tapping his foot impatiently on the hardwood floor of the hallway, "I've got another case."

**Chapter 5: End**

* * *

Hi guys, here's another chapter. Sorry that it's a little shorter than the others; originally, I was going to add some more, but then I realized that I had already reached a point at which I could cut it off so I said "screw it" and cut it as seen above. Plus, I've still got math to do (hooray - not). I've already begun to write chapter 6, but tomorrow I have to go to Florence, SC, where I will be playing in a softball tournament, so I'll upload when I can.

Thank you all so much for reading this story and thanks to all of my reviewers, especially Aohmin's Dim Dick and Aozumi, both of whom made me smile idiotically at my computer screen for a few minutes.


	6. Strange Ties

**END GAME**

**Chapter 6: Strange Ties**

* * *

Levi pushed past Eren into his apartment, moving with his usual speed and grace. Eren shut the door and leaned his head against the wood. _Why did he have to come _today_? Can't I just nurse a hangover in peace?_ Levi slapped the file down onto the coffee table, "Well, come on." Eren groaned and dragged himself over to the couch. He dropped down and picked up the file, scanning it.

The first time through, none of the information made sense. It made more sense the second time he ran through it. By the third time, he was pretty sure he understood the situation. "We're doing kidnappings now?" He looked back at the file. The image of a nine year-old girl with blonde hair and bright blue eyes was in the upper right-hand corner, with the rest of her information on the left.

**Name: Alice Benedict  
Age: 9  
Date of birth: 10/09/03  
Gender: F  
Last seen: in 2nd story bedroom at 8:45 on 9/26/13 by her mother**

There was more information in the file, but that was what the need-to-know facts consisted of. "Yes, Eren, it's a kidnapping case. Shall I get you a gold star? I can't always work murders you know." Levi was particularly agitated this morning, every word coming out of his mouth filled with irritation. "Honestly, it's a miracle you've survived this long kid. Now, go get some clothes on. We're going to check the scene out."

Eren stood, wincing as a fresh thread of pain worked its way through his pounding head. "I could kill you…"

"What was that you idiot?" Eren glanced back at Levi, who cocked an eyebrow at him expectantly as he awaited an answer. Eren turned with a grimace on his face as he slowly made his way to his room.

Each step rocked his head, making him feel like he had just been hit with a baseball bat repeatedly in the temple. Not a very pleasant feeling at six o'clock in the morning on God knows how many hours of sleep. He pulled a fresh shirt on and tugged his shoes back on, thankful that he still had his shoes on. He paid a small visit to the bathroom, raiding the medicine cabinet for as many Aspirin as he could without reaching what could be considered an unsafe amount. He shook four out and swallowed them dry before he emerged from the bathroom, raking his fingers through his hair and smothering a yawn.

"Let's go," he said. Levi needed no further encouragement to march out of the apartment, leaving Eren to shut and lock the door and make his way down the steps after Levi, pulling on his jacket on the way. The black-haired man had a cigarette between his lips by the time Eren finally emerged from the blissful gloom of the apartments and into the pre-dawn haze of the city.

"Those are gonna kill you, you know that right?" Levi gave him a sardonic look. "Kid, I've managed to live this long without getting my head blown off or some other shit like that. If these manage to kill me, I'll give a medal to the makers. Besides, they're herbal – better for you than normal ones. They're made with lemongrass and whatnot."

"Getting your head blown off? Really Levi, what the hell were you doing, fighting in a war?"

Levi looked at him before offering a wry quirk to the corner of his mouth, which could have technically been classified as a smile for the temperamental man. "…Something along the lines of that."

_What a strange thing to say... _Eren rolled his eyes and trudged after Levi, thrusting his hands into his pockets. He walked a few steps behind Levi, the faint almost lemony smell of the cigarette tickling his nose as the smoke wafted past. It was not altogether unpleasant, unlike normal cigarettes, but it was still a strange scent, one that Eren wasn't used to smelling. They walked for a minute or so more before they stopped at a taxi that sat idle next to the curb. Levi stubbed what little of his cigarette he had left out and opened the back door.

"Get in Jäeger, we don't have all day." Eren slid in and Levi swung in beside him, slamming the door shut behind him. The cab itself reeked of cigars and a damp week-old newspaper. The cabbie glanced back at them, starting the car up, "Where to?"

"3299, Weathervane Avenue," Levi said, a testy edge to his voice as he glared into the back of the seat in front of him. Eren watched as Levi looked around the cab, a disgusted look on his face and his lips pulled back in a grimace of revulsion. "And get us there fast." There was no need to tell the cabbie that twice as he peeled out of the parking spot, flooring it to their destination.

* * *

The crime had occurred in one of the better districts of Eden, within the Stohess District, which was part of the Sina Division, one of the three divisions of Eden. Sina was the high end of the city, located smack in the middle of the circular city. The houses became just a little more spread out here, where a person could actually own patches of grass instead of resorting to parks or barrels of flower to fulfill their need for green. Everything was cleaner, fancier, and reeked of wealth, putting the Sina and Maria divisions at almost polar ends of each other. Maria wasn't a horrible part of the city, but it was certainly not as well off as Sina. In comparison to the Rose Division, it was fine, but Sina outshone both of the divisions with its excessive grandeur. The home they arrived at was located more towards the edges of the Sina Division.

Two patrol cars sat outside of the house. Eren recognized the numbers as Marlo and Hitch's car for the one in the driveway and Nanaba's as the one parked by the curb. Levi pushed the door open before the cabbie came to a complete stop, waiting for Eren to crawl from the backseat before he tossed a twenty at the cabbie and slammed the door shut. "Alright moron, let's get this over with." Levi rammed his hands into the pockets of his black coat. Eren sighed and began to follow the man towards the house.

The house itself looked relatively clean; the white sides looked fresh and clean, the dark red brick chimney was vacant of vines and weeks that might crawl up, the roof was clear of leaves for the time being and the array of rose bushes in the front were neat and carefully trimmed. It held the influences of both the Rose and Sina districts; not too gaudy but not too simplistic either, given away by the two elegantly carved marble lions sitting on the porch, made for show rather than practicality.

Levi smashed his finger into the doorbell and pulled back to wait. The wife was the one to answer the door, her face tear-stained and puffy and her blonde hair escaping from a messy bun. She let them in without a word, only a muffled sob into a tissue as they passed. Eren wasn't sure whether to offer a form of condolence or comfort, so he opted to follow Levi's example and just keep walking into the house. Nanaba was waiting for them inside, tapping his foot as he glanced over his notes again.

"It's the upstairs bedroom, second door on your right." Levi nodded and moved up the carpeted steps, the boards creaking quietly beneath his feet. Eren followed, glancing around at the house, examining it. It was a nice home, painted with warm, earthy colors and filled with the scent of fresh flowers. An upright piano had been sitting in the foyer downstairs, a Bible perched on it. There had also been a cross hanging from the wall.

Eren reached the top of the steps and followed Levi into the girl's bedroom. It was surprisingly neat and orderly for a child, but considering how obsessive Levi was about cleanliness, it probably wasn't anywhere near his standards. Levi managed to surprise Eren when he failed to comment about the state of the room, instead going straight to examining.

The covers had been pulled back from the bed, some of them even lying in a heap on the left side of the bed, away from the window, which was shut tight. On the white wall, just above the headboard of the bed, the kidnapper had put a straight slash of bright red paint, which had run a little, resembling blood dripping down. Levi pulled on a pair of gloves and began to shift things, looking for something. Eren stood awkwardly in the center of the room until Levi sighed and reached into the pockets of his jacket and tossed him a pair of gloves. "How useless can you be? Honestly, can't even bother to bring your own gloves."

"Shut up. You _did_ spring this on me after a week of silence. Plus I'm not a cop. All I do is work at a bookstore and occasionally hack into files for Irvin, so why the hell would I need gloves?" Levi gave an irritated grunt in response. Eren sighed and moved over to the window. He hooked his fingers under the lip and pulled upwards. The window slid open, smooth and silent. There wasn't even a screen on the outside of it.

Eren poked his head out; there was a tree a few yards away, a nice sturdy oak with thick limbs that stretched relatively high. All someone would need would be a plank to stretch between the small forks in the branches a few feet away and the windowsill itself, creating a somewhat steady bridge for crossing. Eren leaned out as far as he dared, his eyes slowly roaming over the tree limbs. His eyes skipped over the chips in the bark and the broken twigs the first time, but he spotted it the second time he looked over. It was on a relatively thick branch about six feet away.

Eren looked at the windowsill; scratches on the white paint and a small red droplet. He swiped his gloved finger across it and pulled it away dry; paint. He glanced down at the ground, two stories below. Only a few broken twigs littered the ground, what could be one of the few pieces of evidence from the night before. He leaned out a little further. He knew if he kept leaning out he'd eventually fall, land, maybe even die. He could- a hand smashed into his back.

Eren jolted and his back smashed into the bottom of the window. "Get back in before you fall, honnêtement imbécile." Eren slowly pulled himself back into the room, glaring at Levi and rubbing his back. "Honne-what?"

Levi sighed as he pulled his gloves off, "Honestly, you idiot. Is that good enough for you? People these days are so annoying, especially obnoxious little brats. How does your mother put up with you?"

Eren stiffened and clenched his jaw. He looked away from Levi and flexed his hands, fighting the urge to wrap them around his throat and squeeze. "… My mom's dead you ass. She's been dead for fourteen years."

Uncomfortable silence enveloped them, with irritation flowing off of Eren and guilty surprise off of Levi. "Oh… I'm sorry... I didn't know."

Eren rolled his eyes and tossed the gloves at Levi, still thoroughly and irrationally angered, even though he knew there was no way Levi could have known unless he had been researching him. "Let's just go."

* * *

Levi grimaced at the recollection of his blunder from the morning. _I thought I was more tactful than that. I should have asked Irvin or someone to prevent something like this._ He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair as he flipped the page of notes back to the front to take him mind away from his foolish blunder.

There wasn't much to go on. The parents had put the child to bed the night before and come in at six that morning to wake her up for school, only to find an empty bed and a red slash on the wall. There was next to no evidence or clues to help point to a suspect. All they had was the paint, the marks outside the window and the scratches on the tree. There was nothing else. No contact had been attempted between the parents and the kidnapper or kidnappers. They could very well be looking at a murder case or perhaps even one of those incidences when children were taken and sold on the black market as sex slaves.

Levi sighed and tapped the notepad, fixing his eyes on the white wall of his apartment. _I seem to have no luck when I pair up for cases with that idiot._ That happened to also be the same idiot whose whereabouts were currently unknown. Eren had left the scene by himself once Levi called it. Not a surprising reaction to be honest, considering the tactless comment. _Oh whatever,_ Levi thought irately, _it doesn't matter. Not to mention the fact of that I probably pissed him off earlier._ Levi slammed the notepad on the end table and sighed, his hands coming up to rub his face in irritation. _This is why I don't have partners._

He uncrossed his legs and stood, cracking his fingers. Cleaning would improve his mood, but research was the top priority right now. He entered his room, dark except for the afternoon light seeping through the cracks in the blinds, and started up his computer, the blue glow washing over his face. He logged on and pulled up a new tab and began to search. First it was the red slash mark. As he had no idea what that could be affiliated with, that drew a blank on the search engine. He tried searching for kidnapping cases with any similarities.

There were nearly two dozen cases across the world that were similar in the fact of that little children had been kidnapped, with only a red mark on their walls left behind. Clara Bell, a girl from New York, had been taken from her nursery when she was six months old. Fares Ekman had been taken from his own nursery in Sweden when he was seven months. Johann Bloch had been taken from his nursery in Germany at six-and-a-half months. Lin Yao had been taken from her home in Taiwan when she was five months.

Those were the only four children who had not been found, only identifiable by dental records. Those four children had simply disappeared off the face of the earth, and the only thing connecting them was the red mark on the wall of their bedrooms and that they would all be around the age of twenty-four or twenty-five at this time, if they were still alive.

* * *

Eren ran his finger along the lip of the bottle, his head on one arm of the couch, his feet dangling from the other. He had turned his phone off and hit the lights; hopefully no one would come knocking thinking that he was home. He didn't think he could stand to be around people right now. His head hurt and his hand ached, sore from punching a wall, a brick one to boot. He wasn't sure why Levi's comment had thrown him off so much.

Maybe because he had gotten used to the way that the man carried himself like he was above everyone, like he knew everything. Maybe that was why he had assumed Levi would know about him, or at least, know about the things on the surface. Maybe that was why his comment had hurt more than it should have. _I'm always jumping to conclusions…_

The thought bounced around his head along with a million others. _And I'm always going back on my promises._ The promise he wouldn't drink, the promise he would get help, the promise that he wouldn't cut. Whether they were to another or to himself, he always seemed to be breaking promises as of late.

Eren tapped the rim of the beer bottle again. He could drink himself into oblivion tonight. That would mean no dreams, no nightmares, and no coherent thoughts until morning. He could do it. He had done it before. He had done it to escape the one thing he couldn't seem to escape. Eren sighed and set the bottle on the coffee table and stood. His head had a slight alcohol-induced buzz going round, but he hadn't drunk much. He was still on the first bottle.

He ambled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his eyes. His hands made their way to the edges of the sink, gripping tight as if that could help him hold himself together. Eren sighed and opened the drawer beneath the sink and pulled out another small razor blade. He held it in his fingers for a moment, watching the light glint off of the edges, before he slowly lowered it to his arm and dragged it across the skin.

* * *

Levi watched as Eren sat down in front of him, his cold gray eyes following the other man's movements. The other man was quieter than usual, his mouth set in a grim line and his eyes fixed anywhere but at Levi. "Did you manage to find anything new?"

Levi dropped the file onto the table between them, narrowly missing Eren's coffee cup. "Somewhat. I found some incidents that occurred about twenty-four years ago where nearly two dozen children were kidnapped world-wide. The linking factor to all of them was a straight slash on their bedroom wall with bright red paint. Eighteen of the children's bodies were recovered, burned nearly beyond recognition. Four of the missing children were never even found. They simply vanished off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again."

Eren picked the file up, the frown on his face growing as he read through the pages that Levi had printed off. "There's nothing connecting these kids, other than the fact of that they were all under the age of five. Did you manage to acquire hospital records?" Levi nodded and pulled another folder from his dark gray satchel.

Eren took it from him and scanned the contents for several minutes. Levi watched as Eren laid the sheets out side-by-side and examined them. Eren bent over them, hands clenching the sides of his head, forehead furrowed in concentration. "Race can't link them; neither can ethnicities or their parents' religions…" Eren cocked his head to the side, a look of realization crossing his face as he looked Levi in the face for the first time that day. "Levi, I think I found something. Every one of these kids had the same blood type – AB negative. Do we have access to Alice's medical records?"

Levi raised an eyebrow. These were the times when he wished he had paid attention to Mrs. King when she gave them a basic rundown of genetics, along with various other things that he had deemed useless at the time. "Yes we do. But why would that be important? Why is any of that important?"

Eren sighed and rubbed his temples with one hand, the fingers of the other tapping the plastic tabletop. "Did you not pay attention in biology? AB- is supposed to be the rarest blood type, according to the Red Cross at least. Maybe the kidnappers are draining the kids of blood and selling it, but that's a little irrational considering adults have more body mass, and more blood. At least, I think that's how it works. I'm a bit rusty on the details."

Levi leaned back in the metal chair and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Why would they bother to kidnap kids with certain blood types? On top of that, couldn't they have just gotten them all from the same damn country?"

Eren shrugged as he gathered the papers back together. "You've got me there. I have absolutely no idea." He ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair, an exasperated sigh passing his lips. His sleeve slipped down and revealed the crisp white bandages wrapped neatly around his forearm, just beneath his wrist. Eren caught Levi's glance and immediately jerked his hand and sleeve back down. "What?" he hissed, his face turning red, "I tripped last night and scraped my arms up."

Levi raised an eyebrow at Eren but said nothing, instead opting to lean back and slowly sip his coffee, ignoring the chatter of the customers inside the shop as he stared Eren down. Eren held his eyes for a few seconds before looking away. "If that's all, I've got to go to work now. Call me or something if you find anything else." Eren stood and clenched the coffee cup between his fingers as he walked away.

Levi watched him go and remained sitting for a few more minutes before he picked up his own cup and left, his destination clear. Irvin had known the kid longer than Levi. Maybe he could shed some light on Eren. He walked through the streets, his hands jammed in his pockets, his shoulders squared. The walk to the station was quick, as the coffee shop had only been five or so minutes away.

Most of the officers were out, many of them handling the traffic flow for Eden University's football game. Thankfully, Irvin was still sitting in his office, pouring over mounds of paperwork. Levi rapped the door and waited for Irvin to finish his sentence before the blonde man looked up. "Levi, come on in. What do you need?"

Levi rolled his eyes as he shut the door with a soft click, "Funny isn't it, how you automatically assume that I need something?"

Irvin offered a wry and tired smile, capping and dropping his pen so he could lean back and crack his fingers and roll his neck. "Well, most of the time you call. You only ever come in to talk to me if I've asked you to or if you have something you'd prefer to talk about face-to-face." Levi sighed; had he really become that transparent to Irvin in the last eight years?

"Well… I was going to ask about Eren to be honest. I've gleamed nothing from the kid other than that he has temper issues and that his mother is dead. Found that out yesterday, no helps to you."

Irvin shrugged his shoulders, the 'what-can-I-say' look crossing his face. "It's not my place to tell you about Eren, you should know that. And before you ask, I've got his file under lock and key so don't even bother breaking into my office tonight like you've done before. You're just going to have to try and figure out Eren on your own, just like it's his place to figure out you."

Levi felt his lips pull back in an automatic defensive snarl. "There is _nothing_ about me that he needs to know about, _nothing_. That goes for everyone else too." Levi stood and wrapped his hand around the metal doorknob. "I don't even know why I bother talking to an ass like you sometimes." Irvin's chuckles followed him until he slammed the door shut, cutting off the sound and causing the smattering of people still in the building to look up at the noise, startled and confused. "Go back to work you idiots," he said with an irritated wave of his hands.

_Figure him out? How the hell am I supposed to do that? _Why_ the hell would I want to do that?_

**Chapter 6: End**

* * *

Hello once again, for another chapter of_ END GAME_! Thankfully, I had written most of this last night, so that way I could upload before tomorrow morning. I plan to take part of the RivaMika week, because while I tend to write certain pairings, I keep an open mind to all pairings from all fandoms. (I'm only having a problem in figuring out what the hell to write for the first prompt(s) of course -_-). Anyways, I plan to have the first installment of that out by tomorrow night (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada). Until then, thank you for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy!


	7. The Burning

**END GAME**

**Chapter 7: The Burning**

* * *

_"Fall back, fall back  
The giants approach us now  
Hold tight, hold fast  
We'll find a way somehow.  
This world, cruel and beautiful  
So damning in our despair  
Which fills our hearts to the brim  
So haunting as we prepare.  
Fight now, no turning back  
Pledge your heart to humanity  
Our fate is not to be the prey  
As we face this cruel reality!"_

Eren hummed along to the song streaming through his earbud as he slid a couple of copies of _A Game of Thrones_ into the eyelevel shelves. Jean was thankfully absent from the bookstore, out managing a domestic violence incident in the Shiganshina District of Maria. After the semi-disastrous meeting at the coffee shop earlier that morning his day had seemed to go downhill at a startling rate. He sighed and hit his head against the wooden shelf gently, the soft thumps masked by Marco's voice as he carried on a conversation with a customer about some of Shakespeare's plays, which was barely audible over the music Eren was playing at a low level.

He didn't bother listening in; there was too much to think about already in his head. Levi's cryptic words, the kidnappings, the whole case in general. It was all so fucked up. Eren had no clue where he should even begin to start trying to unravel it all. He sighed and pulled a copy of _The Warrior Heir_ out from the stack of books and slid it into place. _Maybe when I get back to the apartment I'll do a little more research on those cases…_ There was also the hope that he could manage to gleam something more.

Eren set the stack of books on the edge of a shelf, holding them in place with one hand so he could check the time; 4:45. Fifteen more minutes and his shift would be over for the day since Marco had decided to close early for personal reasons. Both Eren and Hannah knew that 'personal reasons' was typically code for Jean, as both of Marco's parents had died while he was in college. Eren slid the IPod back into his pocket and heaved the stack of books back up. _The quicker I get done, the more I can find out._

* * *

The search began with finding the cases, double checking that there were no cases that Levi had failed to find across the global databases. Eren expanded from there, searching for things that could link them other than blood type. After a half hour of scanning for more connections and coming up empty, he turned to looking into why these kids had been kidnapped.

Nearly an hour had passed him by before he stumbled across a site that looked somewhat promising. The article heading screamed out at him and Eren glanced at the subtext beneath the title before clicking on it, a little dubious about the article and site in general. The link directed him to a website with a black background and a white block in the center, where the article had been centered, with pictures scattered throughout the article.

**_EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN LEAD TO DOCTOR BEING IMPRISONED:_**

_Last Friday, police authorities discovered that Dr. Gilbert M. Meridew, a former scientist for the Nazi Party, had been experimenting on children ranging from newborns to children of up to ten years of age. The experiments were uncovered when authorities received an anonymous tip concerning the disappearance of six year-old Alec Adler, who had been abducted two days prior._

_Upon receiving this tip, the authorities obtained a search warrant and proceeded to search the Doctor's house. Nothing was found on the first two floors, but one of the authorities, Lieutenant Vince Eisenberg, reported to have heard the sound of a child crying for help from the basement. The authorities broke the basement door down and went in._

_There they uncovered a lab-like setup, where three children were tied down to surgery tables, connected to several IV drips. Two of the children, Annika Faber and Johann Maurer, were pronounced deceased at the scene. The third child was Alec Adler, who later died in the hospital while during emergency surgery._

_Evidence acquired at the scene led authorities to believe that Meridew had been performing experiments on numerous children. A record book and a storage unit filled with vials of a clear liquid were kept within the basement. Meridew had recorded his findings in the book and where he hid the bodies of the victims he had kidnapped and murdered. The authorities then secured Meridew, the evidence, and the three bodies and placed each under a double watch._

_The next morning, the guards were found to be unconscious, with Meridew murdered in his cell, the evidence gone, and the bodies burned within the morgue. All tapes were found to have been destroyed. The police have no new leads on who might have carried out these actions._

_Tips can be left at XXX-XXX-XXXX._

Eren scratched his chin as he finished reading the article before he scrolled back up and looked at the doctor's photograph. It showed a gaunt and haggard looking man with a thin patch of white hair adoring his wrinkled head. He had thick circular glasses, which made his eyes look slightly enlarged. He didn't really look like the kidnapping and murdering type, but then again, not many people do.

Eren opened up another tab and accessed one of the German databases, which was probably illegal in seven different ways that he could list off the top of his head. He worked his way through till he arrived at the 1950's archives. He filtered the birth and death records until he came up with the certificates of the three children found in Meridew's basement.

All three had AB- blood, the same as the children who had gone missing in 1989 and the same as the Benedict girl. The autopsy reports revealed that all three children had died of similar causes; their vital organs appeared to have ruptured from unknown circumstances and it looked like all three had suffered from heart attacks. Needless to say, that was highly unusual, probably even unheard of, in relatively healthy children under the age of ten. Eren ran his fingers through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh.

_Damn it! Nothing is connecting! Okay, things are connecting somewhat, but not in the way that we need them! Its times like these that I wish I could simply step into the past and figure out what the hell happened. But no, that would be too damn convenient, wouldn't it be? The main question is whether or not there's a connection between Meridew, the missing children of '89 and the new missing children._

The vibrating of his phone against his laptop and the top of the coffee table jerked him from his frustrated thoughts. **Call from: Armin Arlert**. Eren tapped a button and raised the phone to his ear as he leaned back, stretching his stiff back, "'Ello."

_"Hey Eren,"_ Armin sounded cheery, which would certainly be a welcome distraction from the infuriating dead end that Eren had slammed into, head-first.

"What's up Armin? No, let me guess, you just won the lottery. You'll share right?"

Armin's laughter echoed over the phone and Eren smirked as his friend's soft laughter subsided before he spoke. _"No, but I suppose you could say the news I have is related to that. I finally got the cables to deploy and retract without something else coming apart! So long as I can replicate it into another, I think everything will be good to go!"_

Eren grinned at his friend's enthusiasm. "That's great Armin, I'm glad you finally got it working. It took you long enough," he teased, which produced a false snort of irritation from Armin. Eren could envision the eye roll that the blonde was probably making on the other end, his eyes practically in the back of his head. "Who knows, maybe the Red Cross or someone will start using it in rescue operations. It would certainly be more convenient than helicopters."

Armin hummed in agreement_. "I just have to develop a waterproofed version of this before then, but they're already talking about using it to both help the disabled, assist in future war efforts, and use it during earthquakes and whatnot. Personally, I think that's going to be a little expensive to produce, especially how much they've already been talking about buying, but if they're effective and they save lives, I really don't care."_

Eren smiled and nodded to himself. It was so like Armin to put other people ahead of his own desires and goals to travel the world and see the places his grandfather had spoken of which such affection. "You are planning on testing them out first, right?"

_"Of course,"_ Armin said. His voice was humored but indignant at Eren's jokingly implied suggestion. _"The 3DGM is going to be tested intensely in all kinds of environments for at least before I'm allowed to put it up for sale."_

Eren hummed in response as he shifted his mouse, pulling it out of its screen saver. He clicked through the tabs, printing each one as he listened to Armin talk. The printer in his room began to rumble and squeak quietly as the assorted parts moved into place. Eren left the papers in the printer and stretched himself out on the couch, the phone still pressed to his ear with his shoulder as he listened to Armin carry on, scratching idly at his left wrist, which was barren of marks, even scars.

* * *

By Wednesday, October 2nd, they had uncovered no new leads that might point them in the direction of the kidnapper. By that time, two more children had also been taken; Diego Santiago and Jenny Tripp. Nothing new was revealed at either home; just more paint and mysterious circumstances of how or why the children had gone missing in the first place. Eren had shown Levi the article, which he had deemed a possibility. There were too many possibilities of where the children could be. There was too great a chance that they would only find the charred skeletons of the children instead of living, breathing versions of them. There was nothing to go on. It was another dead-end case, just like Marion's case.

Levi threw the latest missing persons file onto his desk, a frustrated and fierce glare fixed upon his face. Eren was only mildly surprised that the desk didn't start melting beneath the heat of the black-haired man's gaze. A new missing person had been reported that morning, a three-year old boy by the name of Samuel Weiss who had been abducted in the middle of the afternoon, when he was home sick from school.

Levi slammed his head onto the desk, startling Eren for a moment. "This can't keep going on!" his voice was a growl of frustration and his forehead was creased with concentration. "No tapes, no prints, not even a damn stray hair for us to go on! Fuck, we don't even know if these three cases are related at all. All we've got is a barrel of useless hunches to go off of."

Levi raked his fingers through his hair and turned his glare on Eren. He took one look one looked at Eren and pinched the bridge of his nose and took several deep, calming breaths. "We've got nothing new to go on either. Each of these kids was taken from a different part of Eden, so we have no way of knowing who will be next, and it's not like we can post an officer at every house that has a child that fits the criteria. That's just flat out impossible." Levi sighed and dropped his hands. "I haven't had a case like this in a while, but at least that one had some hope of being solved."

"Which case was that one?" Levi looked up at Eren. The gray-eyed man looked tired and irritated.

"It was a string of murders back in '05. You'd probably remember it as what the tabloids called 'Hooked Hangings.'"

Eren blinked for a moment, his mind woefully blank in regards to what Levi was talking about before it all came back to him. The case, which had been all over the newspapers for several weeks, involved a woman by the name of Sandra Meriwether. Meriwether had gone on a murder spree, hanging men that she believed were sinful and in the wrong. She had cut nine men up and shoved a hook through their mouths before hoisting them up by the rope on the back of the hook, giving the victims the resemblance of fish caught on a line.

They had captured her after one of her victims-to-be had fought back against her, knocking her unconscious before taking her cellphone and called authorities. She had regained consciousness and fled the scene before the police could arrive, but they cornered her at her home on the outer edges of the Rose District. She had been sentenced to death by lethal injection. "_You_ worked that?! I thought that Irvin and Mike had been working that case. At least, that's what I've heard from people."

Levi shrugged, "I prefer to keep my name and face out of the papers. It's safer that way." Eren frowned and raised an eyebrow at Levi's comment but he bit the questions back. Levi jerked up out of his seat and began to pace. Eren watched him walked back and forth on the threadbare gray carpet that covered the floors of the office area of the station.

To say it was gray was a slight mistake; more accurately, it was a faded gray stained with splotches of blue, black, and red ink, brown coffee stains, and dirt in some places that refused to come out, no matter how hard it was scrubbed. It was hard to imagine it being a deep, lush gray and unstained from years of use, just like it would have been strange to see the office without its mounds of paperwork and evidence collecting on every surface. It was times like these when Eren realized just how messy the station could get that led to Eren wondering how Levi, neurotic as he was about cleanliness, could stand to be within a five-mile radius of the place.

Levi came to a standstill and fished in the pocket of his dark blue jeans. "I need to smoke," he muttered before he whipped around and stormed out of the station, a look of pure irritation on his face. Eren watched Levi go, a vague sense of disappointment welling up in him. The sound of a throat being cleared made him tilt his head over the back of the chair.

Petra stood behind him, her hands on her hips and a grin on her face. "Eren, you should come with us tomorrow night to Club Tryst. After all, you have a night off from the bookstore tomorrow, don't you?"

Eren shrugged, "I do… but this case is still going on and I'm pretty sure Levi would kill me if he knew I was doing something other than helping figure out what the hell is going on with this case."

A disappointed look crept up onto Petra's face and she stuck her tongue out. "I'd tell you to live a little but now that you mention it, you probably wouldn't live much longer if Levi figured out you were slacking. You wouldn't be missing much though. It would have just consisted of Erd passing out at the bar, Gunther trying to start a politics-related debate with someone for some reason, and Oluo acting like a total ass. Oh wait, he always does that. No woman is going to like him if he keeps trying to imitate someone other than himself." Petra sighed and rolled her eyes before fixing them on Eren. "He is just so _irritating_ sometimes, you know?"

Eren rubbed a hand across his mouth, holding back a grin. Petra was so _oblivious_ that it was unbelievable. Then again, a person really had to watch their interactions for a while before they realized that Oluo tried to emulate Levi all the time because he cared for Petra more than he let on. "I suppose you have a point. Maybe you should talk to him about it."

Petra shrugged and threw her hands into the air, exasperation evident on her face. "I've _tried_ but that idiot always says something about how '_the strong and the brave are the ones who are remembered,_' or some bullshit like that. Then he gives me this weird look before he changes the topic. Or he bites his tongue - it really depends on the situation." Her imitation of Oluo was almost spot-on, including her faking biting her tongue and flailing about as imaginary blood gushed from her mouth.

Eren sat up and began to laugh as he turned his chair around, shaking his head at the orange-haired girl. One of the emergency lines went off, the noise jarring in the silence of the office. Petra jumped up from her perch on the edge of the desk and snatched the phone from its cradle, holding it to her ear.

"This is 911, what is your emergency?" She listened for a moment before her head shot up and she clapped her hand over the mouth piece, "Eren, go get Levi. There's a fire by Adam's River near the edge of the Rose-Maria District, at the riverside warehouses. The caller reported that they saw Charlie Marion enter the building and leave a few minutes later, just before the fire began. They say he appeared to be dragging several small bags but that he left without them."

Eren jolted up and darted through the office, thankful that many of the officers were already on cases throughout the city. He ran into Levi at the door and knocked the man backwards a foot or two. The other man glared at him and opened his mouth to snap at him but Eren spoke before Levi could have a chance to. "There's a fire at Adam's River, by the Rose-Maria District edge, at the riverside warehouses. The witness sighted Marion." Levi's mouth snapped shut and he pushed past Eren.

"Come on," Levi said as he darted through the office. He made his way to his desk where he crouched under the desk and pulled a small metal box out. He opened it up and pulled a gun out. Eren thought it might have been a Glock but it could also have been a pistol. He wasn't really one for guns, having never shot one, let alone held one. "Get Irvin," Levi snapped, "He'll need to come with us to cover for your inexperience. He'll get you a gun. Have you ever used a gun before, even if it's only once?"

Eren swallowed nervously; this was _not_ what he had originally agreed on when he had decided to assist Irvin. This was far from the original plan._ When exactly did it begin to deviate?_ Eren shook his head, "No, I've never shot one."

Levi let out a 'tsk' sound and began to pull several cartridges from the box, tossing several to the side while setting others onto the desk. They all looked the same to Eren more or less, with the same metal casing that was beaten into a rectangular shape. "Go get Irvin and get a pistol anyways. Just try not to shoot me."

Eren whirled around and tore the door open to Irvin's office. Irvin looked up, startled to be interrupted so suddenly. "Levi told me to get you. I think he wants you to come with us… and to get me a gun."

Irvin grimaced and stood, dropping his pen onto his desk where his now-discarded paperwork way lying. "Get the address from Petra and get a cruiser out front. We'll meet you out there. I'll drive once you get it out there. It's the car on the left, closest to the entrance." Irvin dug a set of keys out of his pockets and tossed it at Eren.

He snatched them from the air and spun back around, leaving the door open behind him and he darted over to Petra, who was scribbling down something on a piece of paper. She handed it to him without looking up, "Yes, authorities will be on the scene within a few minutes. I have already contacted the local fire departments and hospital." Eren dodged around Levi, who had shed his coat and was jerking a vest over his head, another lying on the desk beside the cartridges and the two guns that had joined the first black one.

The back lot of the police station was empty except for two cruisers. Eren rammed the key into the one closest to the entrance by the side of the police station and jerked the door open. This, while not being his first time in a cruiser, was his first time in the front. Thankfully, it was an automatic as opposed to a stick shift, which Eren cursed every time he had been forced to drive them, regardless of the situation. The engine roared to life and Eren quickly but carefully pulled it out through the space between the station and the building to the right of it, left open specifically for this purpose. He left the cruiser running in front of the station and got out.

Levi and Irvin opened the station doors a few moments later; both were wearing blue vests emblazoned with **Eden Police** over their hearts. Levi was carrying another vest and a gun, one that Eren assumed to be a pistol. "Get in and get this on. You'll be glad you did if we got shot at. Mike and Nanaba are the closest to the warehouses aside from us, so we'll have backup within a few minutes of arrival. Don't do _anything_ stupid. Just stick by the two of us and you might not die."

Eren let Levi shove the vest and gun into his hands, along with a belt with a pouch that gave off a sound of clacking metal when it was jostled. He felt sick with anticipation and stiff with terror; what the hell was he even supposed to do when they got there, stand there and hope to hell he didn't get shot at? He opened the door and slid in, slamming it shut behind him. He barely had the door shut before Irvin was already pulling the cruiser out of its place, the sirens and lights coming on seconds later.

Levi turned around, "Most people would start putting the vest on now." Eren complied, numb fingers fumbling as he tugged the ammunition belt on around his waist. The vest itself was slightly small; where it was supposed to cover down to his hips, there was an inch of space above his hipbone to the bottom of the vest. "Sorry," Levi said, "I grabbed the first one I found. It was Petra's. Now," he held a gun up, turning it so Eren could see.

His thumb pulled a little lever-like extension from the back of the gun, behind the rectangular muzzle, which elicited a soft click from the gun. "That's the safety – pull it back to disengage. Doing that will allow you to shoot. Do that only when we tell you too, or if there's a chance you might shoot or get shot at. Don't shoot from the hip like they do in the movies – that rarely ever works, and even then, it's pure luck more often than not unless you have an automatic, but last time I checked, we don't. Lastly, try not to hit us." Eren nodded, running over the instructions in his panicked mind. _Mikasa's going to have a fit when she finds out what I'm doing. Fuck, the authorities won't even be able to find a body once she's done with me._

* * *

The fire had spread from warehouse 12A when they arrived, with thick columns of dark gray and black smoke pouring into the sky. Orange and red flames burned with a passion, their light and deadly grace reflected on the surface of the slow-moving river. Levi opened the door and rose, the gun gripped loosely but firmly in one hand. Firefighters were already on the scene, fighting to quench the flames that licking up along the warehouses. He could see Irvin in his peripheral, pressing a Bluetooth into his ear. "Levi, another tip just came in concerning Marion. They spotted him by Warehouse 22B" Thankfully he was still on their side of the river, but the bridge was only two more rows down from 26B.

"Got it," Levi said, pulling the safety back on his gun. He glanced back at Eren. The other man was pale and silent, his eyes stretched wide with fear. Eren honestly looked like he was about to collapse to the ground and start heaving up the contents of his stomach. _This is not how I imagined this turning out… Now I've got an inexperienced idiot with me while on the trail of a murderer. This is fucking fantastic._ "Irvin, you cover the bridge-side street. Shoot on sight. Eren, you come with me. Try not to put a bullet through my head, would you?" Eren jerked his head, his lips still clamped together in a thin, white line.

Levi turned and began to jog, careful of where his feet were going and sticking close to the right side of the street, away from the raging fire that was currently blazing. Levi turned into one of the alleyways between the warehouses. Eren's footsteps echoed behind him, a few feet behind. The shouts, roar of the fire, crash of heavy objects, and groan of buckling iron and wooden beams filled the air, blocking out almost every sound.

Dark gray smoke filled the air, burning Levi's unprotected throat and eyes even though they weren't in the fire. A wind carried stray bits of ash and embers, carrying a deadly load that could mean even more chaos than before. _We need to find Marion, now!_ Levi whipped around the corner of the alleyway and jerked back. Fragments of stone and a cloud of dust burst into the air as a bullet slammed into the corner of the building, mere inches from Levi's head.

Levi glanced at Eren, who looked positively terrified but strangely determined and focused, his gold-green eyes glinting. Levi braved a glance around the corner once more; Marion was running away, towards the gap between 11C and 12C. "Come on," Levi said, breaking into a sprint after Marion. They reached the mouth of the alley and stopped, both of their guns pointed down at Marion, who had stopped halfway down the alley; Levi's gun was steady while Eren's was shaking ever so slightly in his hands.

Marion's gun was pointed down towards the ground, his shoulders hunched, his deranged and bloodshot eyes fixated on something just above them. His entire body was shaking like a junkie going through withdrawals, turning him into a skeletal-looking man covered with ratty clothing and gray-tinged clothing. Whatever he was hooked on, it must have been strong. "D-don't come any closer!" Marion screamed, whipping his head back and forth, his eyes stretched open as wide as they could go, "Monsters!" His gun came up faster than Levi thought it could have, especially considering the man's emaciated and fragile condition.

Levi leapt to the side and tucked into a roll, coming up on his knee and foot. He pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet slammed straight into Marion's chest, straight through his breastbone. The second caught Marion in his left shoulder, sending him spinning and sending his second shot ricocheting off the building, burying itself harmlessly somewhere in the ground. Levi stood slowly, his eyes fixed on Marion's body, which lay on the ground, slowly bleeding out into the filthy alley. "Remind me to get you some shooting practice kid," Levi said, turning his head towards Eren, who stood staring blankly forwards.

He watched as Eren looked down at his lower abdomen, where his hands were clamped over his waist, just above his left hip. Levi watched as blood began to trickle from between the cracks of Eren's fingers, rolling down the tanned skin before falling down to the ground. Eren looked at Levi, his face a mask of numb shock and confusion as he pulled a hand away, already stained and dripping with blood. Levi froze, rooted to the ground as he watched Eren's eyes roll back before he fell backwards onto the concrete, staining the dirt and oil covered stone crimson, a small red pool already beginning to form beneath his waist.

**Chapter 7: End**

* * *

I get the odd feeling some of you are going to be resisting the urge to strangle me. I wonder why? He's been shot for a reason. I've got all of this planned out, but from here-on-out it gets a little scifi-like. So yeah. I should probably say something to some of you lovely reviewers. But thank you all for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy!

**layer14:** I'm thinking you'll find out most of Eren's backstory within the next chap or so and Levi's will come in… sometime… but I honestly have no idea when. I'm typing what's on my mind with only the end goal being clear. Although, the kidnapper & motives won't be known to you guys for a while.  
**Ahomine:** I'm a very self-conscious person, especially about my image and writing, even though I wanna become an author... It was hard for me to get the courage to even start uploading to be honest. But you guys are making me feel a little more confident about my writing and myself in general!  
**calleyrose:** I have a wonderful scene concerning that later on.  
**blackirishawk: **My only response is laughter.  
**sassychina:** I'm fighting the urge to either laugh or blush, but thank you very much either way!  
**Animo32124:** I'm glad that you've come to enjoy this and I hope you continue to do so!


	8. Tell Me

**END GAME**

**Chapter 8: Tell Me**

* * *

Levi dropped to his knees beside Eren, the Glock slipping from his hand and clattering to the ground beside him. _Bandages, I need bandages._ He began working on the clasps holding the vest in placing with one hand, the other delving into his pockets in search of his knife. The vest, the bottom of which had been grazed by the bullet and was already becoming stained with darkness, came away after a fierce tug. Levi tossed it carelessly to the side and grabbed a fistful of Eren's white shirt, where the growing crimson stain had yet to spread.

He dug the tip of the knife into the fabric and began to slice thin but long strips away as quickly as he dared to. The knife was dropped back onto the ground once he had cut away six or seven strips. Levi slapped them together in a crisscrossed pattern, folding the edges over each other. It wasn't the neatest makeshift bandage he had made, but hopefully it would be enough to slow the blood flow. He pulled Eren's shirt away from the wound, the blood making it cling to his skin.

Levi slapped the pad over the bullet hole and leaned into his, pressing hard against wound. Eren was unconscious, his chest heaving in short, rapid gasps and his eyes flickering madly beneath his lids. He was unlikely to wake up for a while, which made it easier to apply the pressure without worrying that it would cause more pain. Either way, the shock would probably prevent him from feeling any pain if he did happen to wake up. Levi's eyes made their way back down to the bandage.

Blood was beginning to ooze through the cotton strips, squeezed out from the pressure and collecting on his hands before droplets began to roll down his hands before falling to the concrete below. Levi pressed against the wound harder. As far as he could tell, Eren had been hit in a non-vital area, but there was no way of knowing whether or not the bullet had already passed through without rolling him over to check, which wouldn't be the smartest of moves to make. Levi glanced up and down the alleyway; no one in sight. He pulled one hand away and leaned on Eren as much as he dared with one hand.

Paying no mind to the blood coating his hand, Levi searched his pockets for his phone. He placed a hand over the last pocket and realization hit him, bringing with it desolation and anger. His phone was lying on his desk back at the station, forgotten in their haste. _Damn it! Now is _not_ the time for this to be happening!_ Eren could die right here, right now, and Levi was helpless, too afraid to move Eren, too afraid to leave him there.

The soft thump of footsteps brought his head whipping up, the gun coming up with it. Levi's finger tensed on the trigger before it relaxed and he set the gun down again to press his hand back against the bandage. The familiar blonde hair, filled with a slight coating of ash, was recognizable, even at a distance. Irvin faltered in his steps towards them as he took in the scene before he broke into a jog, quickly covering the distance with his long legs. "You're going to get a bullet through your head one day if you keep creeping up on people," Levi muttered. "Get your phone and call for some paramedics."

His arm jerked as a hand clamped around his bare forearm, hot and sticky with blood. Levi looked back at Eren. The other man's eyes were emerald pits of raw terror, panic, and agony. "No hospitals…" Eren gasped, his fingers clenching tight around Levi's arm, his knuckles going white and his arm trembling. "I can't go… don't take me." Levi's eyes widened for a moment, his face going slack with confusion before it hardened. He pulled the arm Eren didn't have a death grip on away from the bandage and clenched his fist into a tight fist.

"Sorry Eren," he muttered before hitting the brown-haired boy square in the jaw. Something small and white flew from his mouth, skittering across the ground with the sound of a small pebble; a tooth. _Great, that's yet another thing I can apologize for later._ Eren went limp beneath him, his hand falling away as he slipped back into unconsciousness. Levi glanced back up at Irvin, "Now is typically the time when people start calling the hospital."

Irvin held his hands up in a gesture of helplessness, an apologetic look on his face. "I can't do that Levi. Under no circumstances can he go to the hospital. He needs Zoe."

* * *

Hanji was probably the only person who would have reigned in all questions when they brought Eren in, unconscious and still bleeding. She got right to work, kicking both Irvin and Levi out so that she and Moblit could perform their first operation on a live patient, something she was woefully unprepared for. She had no anesthesia, she had no practice with live patients, who could suddenly, especially in this case, sit up mid-surgery, she didn't have medication to combat the shock, and she didn't have any equipment for a blood transfusion. It was better than the threatened alternative, which was Irvin handcuffing him to a pipe at the warehouses so that he could take Eren to Zoe.

All in all, none of it did anything to quell the crushing tide of guilt that threatened to drag him under. Standing in the hall outside of the morgue certainly did nothing to help his mood. Levi tapped his foot, arms crossed and eyes fixed on Irvin in a furious glare that would send most people the other way on a good day. Irvin stared back, acclimated to Levi's mood swings and anger. Irvin had once commented that Levi reminded him of magma; deceptively slow at times with his anger, but destroying everything in his path when he desired revenge or something of the like. "Now Irvin, do you care to explain why we couldn't take Eren to a hospital? You know, they're those places with the doctors and the sophisticated medicines that we go to when we get really hurt or sick."

Irvin sighed and his hand made its way to the back of his neck, an uncomfortable look crossing his face. He was visibly warring with himself, the conflict evident on his normally collected face. "I can't do that Levi," he said after an extended period of time. "Eren… it's something that's best heard directly from him. It's a long story, one he was barely comfortable telling me even after three years of our acquaintance."

Levi flung his hands into the air, exasperation leaking into every movement, "Oh really? And what am I supposed to tell Mikasa or Armin? Do you want me to tell them that their best friend is being operated on by a crazy woman who cuts dead bodies up for the hell of it? And need I even mention how I managed to get him shot while he was with me? I'm sure that would go over _wonderfully_."

Levi waited for Irvin to form a response for several moments. When the blonde man failed to do so, Levi spun around and stormed away, glaring furiously at the walls. He needed a cigarette and he needed it _now_. He made his way past the front area and out onto the street where he leaned against the brick wall of the building and fished a cigarette from his pockets. The taste of mint flowed onto his tongue, mixing with the scent of ash and smoke left behind from the fire.

He could still see the columns in the distance. They were thinner and lighter now than they had been before. The firefighters must have finally gotten the blaze under control. The fire had begun what, an hour ago? It was found to be close to finished. As soon as the fire was confirmed to be completely out they would send teams through the wreckage, searching for anything that could hint as to why they had begun to burn and what the bags Marion had been carrying contained. Marion himself had been picked up by Mike and Nanaba, who had taken him to another morgue. Neither officer had suspected a thing when Irvin had radioed them to inform them that they were chasing a second suspect; a second suspect that didn't even exist. Levi couldn't help but wonder how much Irvin, or even Hanji, were hiding about this situation. He felt so behind, so in the dark about everything and it was starting to drive him insane.

Levi lingered outside of the morgue, light gray smoke passing his lips and minty scent mingling with the acrid tang of smoke that filled the air as he watched people mill about. They walked around, confused and afraid, but still capable of ignoring the events of that morning and carrying on with their lives, as if nothing was wrong. Although to them there probably wasn't anything wrong, not yet anyways. The sky slowly began to darken, orange, gold, and red creeping up into the western horizon as the rest of the sky began to shift. The sky was clear; maybe the stars would be visible tonight.

Levi sighed and dropped the last cigarette butt down to the ground, grinding it out with his heel before he straightened up and opened the morgue door again. It was time to find out whether or not there was another dead body inside or not.

* * *

The pain was unbelievable at first; a burning sensation that filled him gut that went on relentlessly. It hadn't been so bad at first, especially while his mind had still been numb and uncomprehending of the events that had occurred mere moments before. It was when he regained consciousness while Zoe and Moblit were hovering above him, masks over their mouths, their gloves hands bloody and holding sharp utensils, and a blinding white light shining straight into his eyes. He could feel Zoe poking around in him, the icy touch of metal on his burning skin, the shifting of the bullet, the sheer agony that every moment brought. He was almost certain that Moblit had been forced to hold down his kicking at screaming body before he lapsed back into unconsciousness at some point or another.

He opened his eyes again to a dim and unfamiliar ceiling. There was a soft, fleecy blanket covering his bare torso and boxer-clad legs. The room bore the faint scent of lemon cleaner, the soft and comforting scent of lavender, and the sharp but not unpleasant scent of tea. The scents were subtle, tickling at his nose and sharpening the focus of his sleep bleary mind. _Where the hell am I? And who changed my clothes…?_ Eren shifted slowly, working his elbow beneath him as he slowly straightened up, propping himself up with his elbow. The gradual movement brought a groan pushing past his lips as the dull ache in his side instantly magnified. It might have felt fine while lying down but _damn_ it hurt like hell.

A book closed with a snap and Eren slowly turned his head, blinking several times before his eyes focused on the person in the chair to his right. Levi sat in a black leather chair, one ankle resting on top of his knee, a book resting on his lap. He had changed from earlier, from the clothes he had been wearing when they were at the warehouses, switching to a long sleeved gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black pants. Eren could understand why, considering the other clothes probably reeked of smoke and most likely had blood on them. Levi looked at him, his gaze showing no emotion, his posture stiff and refined.

"So… you're finally awake I see." Eren nodded and opened his mouth to reply but only a slight rasp came forth. Levi stood wordlessly, placed the book on the end table, and disappeared from Eren's line of sight. Eren pushed himself further up on the couch he was lying on till he could rest his head on the armrest. He had just closed his eye when Levi returned, tapping his shoulder gently and holding a glass of ice-filled water in his hand. Eren took it gratefully and drank deeply, relishing in each drop as it reached his parched throat. "How's your mouth?"

Eren cocked his head to the side, a confused look cropping up on his face. He ran his tongue around in his mouth; there was no taste of blood, no gaps in his teeth, nothing. "What's wrong with my mouth?"

Levi raised an eyebrow, a fleeting look of confusion whipping across his face. "Open your mouth," he commanded as he turned the light on the end table on. Eren complied, opening his mouth and holding still as Levi's fingers grasped his chin gently, turning his head back and forth as he examined it. Levi pulled away after a few moments, the spots here his fingers had been staying warm for a few moments longer as he sat down once more. "I punched you, remember? You lost a tooth… but none are missing…"

Eren swallowed nervously and pulled the blanket up in front of his face, hiding both the flush that was beginning to smolder across his face and the nervous grimace that was slowly starting to tug his mouth down. "Ah… about that…"

Levi glanced at him, "Eren, I need an explanation. Irvin wouldn't tell me why we couldn't take you to the hospital. He said you'd have to tell me. So tell me Eren, what the fuck is going on?" Eren tried to swallow but his throat dry once more, this time it was from anxiety. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, unsure of what to say. "Come on you idiot, I haven't got all of eternity to hear this if you're actually going to say anything." Eren nodded and swallowed once more.

"I… it's a long story…" Levi nodded but remained silent. Eren glanced up at the man before he turned his head so he could stare at the ceiling. Maybe that way he could pretend he was just talking to himself, telling himself everything that had ever happened. Maybe he could pretend that there was no one else in the room to hear it, no one else to know it. But someone else would know it, and that thought alone terrified Eren more than he thought it could. He took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly.

He could tell Levi. He could tell Levi right now, every single thing that he could remember. How long had he been wishing, hoping, for someone else to come along to hear his story? So why could he not tell it now? Was he too afraid of Levi's judgement? Probably. Was he afraid of what might happen? Definitely. It had been hard enough telling Irvin but now... he barely knew Levi. He knew nothing of his past. All he knew was that he was a bad-tempered neat freak. It shouldn't have even been an option to tell him. Eren's hands clenched together, his nails digging into his palms. His mind was in a turmoil; tell him, don't tell him, trust him, don't trust him. He was confused. He was terrified. He was so closed off from other people, so used to throwing up a facade that he wasn't sure he could tear it down again. He wasn't sure he could let someone else in.

"I haven't got all night Eren. Either tell me or don't, it's your choice. Eren let out a shuddering breath and raked his fingers through his hair. _This is where I could really use a coin flip and leave everything to chance. _But maybe, just maybe, it would help. Maybe telling someone would alleviate some of the strange guilt, frustration, and confusion that had been building up within, burning to be released. He didn't know, not anymore. _I'll... I'll tell him... _His voice was soft and unsure, each word shaking with uncertainty and fear. It grew no stronger as he continued to speak, staying quiet and wavering in his unease.

"I don't remember much of my childhood. The doctors said that it was a side effect of trauma, although they're still unsure of what caused it. I can remember pieces of it though, the things that really impacted me. The first thing you have to know is that my mother, Carla Jäeger, was a photographer and my father, Grisha Jäeger, was a children's doctor. They met in 1984, five years before I was born. I know they told me at one point or another how they met, how they fell in love, I just can't remember it, not anymore. Mikasa might, but you'd have to ask her. They eventually married and settled down in Shiganshina.

"I was born an only child, although I think they considered having another child when I was still young, I'm not sure. You'd probably remember my father when he helped find a cure for that epidemic in 1995. I remember him giving all of us injections for it. He always gave me my shots at home. I guess since he was a doctor he was allowed to do that. It was 1997 when he took me to go meet Mikasa. She lived in another part of the Shiganshina District, up by the hills close to the edge. I think it was late summer when we went to go visit. I think that my father was going to give her an injection for the flu but I don't recall.

"When we got there… it was a bloodbath… Mikasa's parents had been brutally murdered. Her father was lying just inside the doorway on his back. Her mother was by the table, clutching a knitting needle, like she had meant for it to be a weapon against their attackers. We couldn't find Mikasa anywhere. My father told me to go outside and stay put while he called the police and made sure whether Mikasa's parents were alive or not. I found boot prints while I was outside – three sets. Believe it or not, I was a bigger idiot back then. I decided to go after them.

"I think it was night when I found them, three men in a wooden cabin out in the woods with Mikasa in the center of the room, shell-shocked and her hands bound together. I'm not sure how, but I managed to get inside and steal a knife from the kitchen. The entire place was dark and the entire house creaked around me… it was hard to stay quiet. I can remember bursting into the room and stabbing one of the men in the throat. I can remember his blood splashing over me and I remember how _good_ it felt to have revenge for Mikasa, even though I barely knew her at the time. I stabbed the other man in the heart and began to free Mikasa.

"I completely forgot about the third man. He came in after I had cut Mikasa's hands free and he lifted me up against the wall. He was trying to strangle me. I remember screaming at Mikasa to fight and she picked up the knife I had dropped and buried it into the man's back. Only later did I find out everything – they had raped her, beaten her, and planned to later sell her on the black market as a child sex slave. I told the authorities that I had been kidnapped while I was waiting outside and Mikasa backed my story up. She came to join our family soon after.

"The next couple of years I barely remember. When I was eleven, things… things changed. My mother died, killed in a hit-and-run. They think it was a drunk driver, but they can't be sure. The only thing left at the scene other than my mom's totaled car and her body was a note left under the wipers, on the backside of a coupon for some flower shop. All it said was 'I'm sorry.'

"My father… he was strange after that. He would disappear for hours at a time with no explanation. He would return later, a strange look in his eyes. During that time, he… he began to change. He stopped being the calm, kind father and doctor everyone once knew and became angry and delusional. I think my mother's death really messed him up. Those last few days though… I barely remember them. Most of what I know comes in bits and pieces. The rest, others have told me.

"My father took me somewhere. I don't recall exactly where, but I think it might have been a forest. He told me he was giving me one last shot, tears in his eyes. I can remember trying to fight him off. He looked deranged. After that, everything became a haze of incoherent sights and sounds – nothing made sense. I came to about a week later in a hospital. Mikasa said that they had found me wandering in the forest after having been missing for four days. She told me that our house had burned down, our father inside of it. We couldn't even hold a burial, as all that was left was ash for the most part. There might have been a bone from his pinky finger.

"We went to live with Armin's grandfather after that for about four years before he had a heart attack. It was around that time that I discovered something fundamental had changed with me… I had… accidentally cut myself on a knife. When I went to rinse the blood from it, I saw the skin heal back, the wound close up. Within what might have been thirty to forty seconds, I went from having a large cut on my palm to nothing at all. Not even a scar was left."

Eren trailed off, finished with his story, silent tears dripping down his face. He pressed the heels of his hands against his face and rubbed furiously; trying to get rid of the tears and trying to get rid of the confused anguish that still lingered after so long. There was so much he didn't know, so much he wished he knew. It infuriated him that he couldn't see his own memories clear, seeing them through a haze of static instead for the most part. It infuriated him that he was crying, so visibly weak but unable to stop, unable to really care at the moment.

He glanced up at Levi, who was staring stone-faced beyond him, his face a blank mask that was utterly unreadable. He watched Levi for a long time, watching the man stare at the wall as he processed everything Eren had told him. It took a long time for Levi to finally focus on him. "So… you're technically a murderer?"

Eren hesitantly nodded, "Irvin… he always suspected that I hadn't been kidnapped, that I had sought them out. I told him the truth a while ago about that. He swore he wouldn't tell anyone, and as far as I know, he's kept that promise."

"And you heal extraordinarily fast. What, do you grow your limbs back like a damn lizard? _Gross_," Levi said with a roll of his slate gray eyes. Eren nodded in response. "Then those bandages from the other week from your tripping incident… Are those all healed up?" Eren nodded mutely, his eyes still fixed on Levi. He had no clue as to what Levi was thinking, what he was planning on doing. For all Eren knew, he could have been wondering how to kill someone as seemingly immortal as he was. "Do Mikasa and Armin know?" Eren nodded once again, the obvious answer to such a question.

"Great," he muttered, "I've got a kid who hunted three murders down and murdered them, is amnesiac, injected with God knows what, oh, and did I mention he has freaky healing abilities? How _lovely. _Well then, that'll make things a little easier to explain to your friends." Levi stood with a sigh and rolled his neck around, his face twisted into a thoughtful expression. "You'll have to stay here tonight, mainly because the chances of me driving you to your apartment at two A.M. are about as likely to happen as the chances of having Hanji suddenly give up her obsession with bodies and the dissection of such. Give me a minute and I'll get you another blanket or two."

Eren watched as Levi disappeared into what he could probably safely assume was Levi's apartment. The apartment was quiet except for his breaths and the sound of Levi rustling around in his room. Levi emerged after a few moments, his bare feet quiet against the polish floorboards. He had changed, having shed his gray shirt and black pants in favor of a loose white short sleeved shirt and gray sweats. Levi had two blankets and a pillow stack up in one hand, which he quietly handed to Eren. "If you get up during the night, wake me up. Insanely fast healer or not, you just had someone pull a bullet from your side, and if you tear your stitches, I'm not guaranteeing I'll help patch you up again. Turn the light out whenever you go to sleep."

Levi spun around and marched away from Eren. Eren watched him go, his eyes trained on the other man's back. More specifically, they were trained on the pale white shoulder that the loose shirt half-exposed. Eren let out a heavy sigh and crammed the pillow beneath his head, spreading the extra covers out the best that he could before stretching up and turning the switch of the lamp. He was plunged into darkness with a click and Eren let his head sink into the pillow that smelled strongly of lemons, lavender, and Levi.

* * *

The antechamber was dark, lit only by a few lanterns, something that was outdated but convenient when lights could not risk being turned on. Lights would only draw unwanted attention. A man sat in a chair, the high back stretching a foot or so above his head, edged with gold that glimmered in the flickering lamplight. "Have the bodies been burned?"

A girl kneeling ten or fifteen feet away nodded, her eyes fixed upon the ground. "Yes, my lord. All three bodies have been burned. The others are currently acquiring Marion's body. They will return shortly with it."

The man's lips pulled back in a snarl. "Get rid of that useless man. He could have killed the subject. He should be thankful he's dead already, otherwise… well, let's just say that his last days would have been spent in agony." A smirk crept up on the man's face, deranged and sadistic. "Are we ready for the next stage of the plan?"

"Yes, my lord. We are awaiting your command to begin."

The man nodded and leaned back in the chair, tapped the arm for several moments, stretching out the silence between the girl's words and his response. "We are nearly ready…" he murmured, gazing something beyond the girl."The plan will begin soon, very soon… And when it begins, none shall live without fear of us and our divine wrath!" His brow furrowed, a sadistic glint entering his eyes, his face made up of sharp angles and hard planes.

"Let the end game begin."

**Chapter 8: End**

* * *

And the plot is further thickened. Somewhat. I guess. Anyways: yes, no Levi past. Yet. I'm saving that for later. But at least you got Eren's, right? Mm, I'm procrastinating on writing any sex scenes (having neglected to write one... ever) but there might be one in the next chapter. Might. I'm not positive quite just yet. Sorry I did not upload earlier, I was attempting to slog through math I didn't understand! Anyways, to the charming reviewers:

**LiveInTheMomentx:** No worries, it was fine~ And I'd like to hear some of your theories sometime; I wonder what they're like...  
**calleyrose:** A little bit of push, more subconscious really. I have a massive push or two planned though. One will come into play very soon... Hopefully. And cliff hangers are the best, no?  
**Aohmine:** Your reaction... I'm sorry but that's just hilarious. And thanks so much. You're just too sweet for any words.  
**Pinkuto:** Yeah, I think I smell a bit of fluff to, just a touch. And I shall!  
**layer14:** Very easily, and yes, it's for the story. But don't worry, there's more reason to panic later on.  
**blackirishawk: **He needs to be wrapped in bubble wrap methinks.  
**ichiruzuka:** I actually have a sadistic tendency to kill main characters off... Heh, heh, heh...


	9. Agony and Pleasure

**END GAME**

**Chapter 9: Agony and Pleasure**

* * *

By the time Eren woke up at eleven, the bullet wound was more or less gone, leaving only pink scar tissue behind, which seemed to grow smaller with every passing minute. Levi dropped Eren off at his house at noon, few words having passed between them in the past hour. Eren slowly walked up the stairs, not wanting to take the elevator even though his side was still burning. It was a tolerable burn, one he welcomed. It was a way to remind himself that he wasn't so drained, both emotionally and mentally, that he couldn't feel.

He took the steps slowly, one foot at a time instead of his usual way of taking two or three at a time, both going up and coming down. He felt… hollow inside. It was strange how he craved human comfort but wanted to reject it at the same time, how he wanted to just sit and talk with the one person he though he never would have been able to get along with; Levi. It was a startling realization, one that sent him into a vigorous rubbing of the face as he tried to pretend like his cheeks hadn't started smoldering.

Eren sighed and pulled his keys from the gray sweatpants he was currently wearing, the sweatpants which weren't actually his. Neither was the shirt for that matter, but thankfully the jacket and shoes were his. Levi had loaned him some clothes before they had left and apparently he had also retrieved Eren's coat from the station, which still had his phone and keys in the pockets. The pants were just a hair too short, the white shirt slightly too short and slightly too small. Eren wasn't sure what had happened to his other clothes, just that they were gone.

He turned the lock and opened the door, blinking in surprise when he found two someone's waiting on him in his apartment. Mikasa and Armin were seated on his chairs, looking expectantly at him. Armin was holding a coffee cup in one hand. Another was in front of Mikasa and there was a circular object wrapped in paper lying next to a third, seemingly untouched cup of coffee on the coffee table just in front of the couch. Eren closed the door with a soft click and groaned inwardly. Mikasa was going to _murder_ him. "Hi guys," he said tentatively, "I'm home."

Mikasa's head slowly rose, moving slowly. Her gray eyes burned with anger as she glared at him, silently demanding an explanation. Eren slowly crept over to the couch and sat down, waiting for one of them to speak as he sat down. "Eren…" Mikasa said and her voice deceptively soft and calm for the turmoil that Eren could see in her, evident through her eyes. "Can you explain to me why the hell I got a call this morning from Levi? Can you explain why he told me that you had been shot and that someone called Hanji had operated on you and gotten the bullet out?" Eren was surprised how well Mikasa was doing; normally by now she would have sat him down in a corner, making him sit in silence for several long, arduous hours as she berated him nonstop.

"Well…" Eren said, wary of anything that might set Mikasa off on a mothering-overload. "Levi and I were at the police station yesterday going over some facts about the case. You know that fire by Adam's River yesterday? Well, Levi, Irvin, and I were the only ones at the station so we had to respond to the call, especially since Marion had been sighted at the scene. So Levi got me a gun and a vest and Irvin drove us there. Levi and I went one way and Irvin went the other. We saw Marion first and followed him. He stopped in the middle of an alleyway. I think he was on some kind of drug because he seemed to be a little off. Then… well, he shot me before either of us could react, although I'm pretty sure Levi got a couple of shots off. He wanted to take me to the hospital but when I told him no, he punched me. He must have knocked out a tooth because he was asking about that last night… sorry, earlier this morning, around two I think. We talked for a bit before I went back to sleep till an hour or so ago…"

Okay, maybe he could have been a _little_ more careful with his words considering the murderous look on Mikasa's face, but it was too late to take those words back. Armin's mouth was open in shock, which was understandable considering that was a first, even for Eren. Mikasa simply sat in the chair, her eyes narrowed and fixed on Eren, the gray depths of her eyes burning with an unimaginable wrath; not that Eren would want to imagine it either way.

"Eren…" Mikasa said and her voice was so calm, so slow, that Eren was almost positive she was going to bridge the gap between them so she could drive a fist into one various body part or another. He raised his hands defensively, one going up to cover his face, the other instinctively moving to his crotch. Mikasa might love him, but she looked furious enough to hit him there.

"Eren, you're such an idiot! God, you are such an idiot, I can't even _believe_ you! This Hanji woman got it out right? Has it healed over? Did that short man hurt you anymore? Did he touch you inappropriately?" With every sentence Mikasa leaned in closer and closer until their maces were mere inches apart. She had stood at some point when she was talking, following Eren as he inched his way away from her wrath till there was no more room to move without going over the arm of the couch.

He _could_ try to escape out the window, but that was a long drop, especially since there wasn't one of those rickety metal fire escape stairs outside. That would have simply been too convenient. Eren's face began to burn brightly, his cheeks flaming red, "N-no, I'm fine! Nobody touched me!" Mikasa stared at him, silent for a long time before she crumpled down onto the couch beside him, her head falling into her hands. Eren slowly straightened, watching her shoulders shake. She was silent, even now, when she most likely wanted to scream and cry at the top of her lungs.

"Eren…" Mikasa whispered and her voice hoarse and trembling, "You could have died… You could have left me again, like you almost did before…" Eren's chest contracted as agonizing guilt slammed into him. He felt like all the air had been knocked out of him, leaving him shocked and breathless. _Oh God... I really fucked up, didn't I?_ Eren put his hand on Mikasa's shoulder, which shook gently beneath his hand. Armin moved to Mikasa's other side and they both pulled her into a hug. _Idiot! _Eren berated himself. _I'm such a damn idiot! I'm sorry Mikasa, I'm so sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…_

Somewhere during those thoughts his thoughts had stopped being private and the words rolled off his tongue. He could hear himself distantly, sounding like a broken record player repeating the same message again and again in hopes of making things somewhat right. They stayed like that for a long time, the three of them siting silently together, comforting each other and holding each other tight, as if reassuring one another that yes, they were there and that yes, they were all alive and healthy.

* * *

Mikasa and Armin had come to the decision earlier that they were going to stay at Eren's apartment for a while and that was exactly what they did. They camped out in the living room, talking quietly, movies playing in the background and mugs of hot chocolate clenched in their hands as night slowly began to descend upon Eden, the skies blazing with dying sunlight. Mikasa's hand kept brushing his, only intensifying Eren's already crushing guilt.

He knew why she did it, he knew what it meant. He knew that she was checking that he was warm, breathing, _alive_, because if he wasn't then she would be alone again. Because he knew that she was afraid of losing what little family she had left, the family that seemed to keep disappearing, no matter what she did. The simple beating of his heart, the warmth radiating off his skin brought her comfort, no matter how long it lasted because it was a reminder to herself that she hadn't been left.

The relief that had come with talking to Levi early that morning had only brought a temporary feeling of respite to Eren and now everything that the talk had washed away was back, full-force. It was terrifying really, knowing that even for a few hours, his mind had been blissfully absent of the self-torment, the hatred, the guilt, and then it could so easily be reverted back, like nothing had happened at all to temporarily cause a change. It was terrifying to realize that he had hurt Mikasa and Armin more than he thought he could have, so much he was afraid that things would change, that they would leave him to avoid being hurt.

Rationally, he knew that such a thing would never happen, but that little piece of his mind, diminutive but strong, fought against all rational thoughts, planting seeds of doubt within his mind, slowly spreading corruption. It was that little voice in the corner of his mind poisoning his thoughts, his mind, and darkening every aspect of life, covering it all with a dark, gauzy veil. But instead of voicing his thoughts, his concerns, Eren put up a fake front and sipped his hot chocolate.

He laughed at all the right times, smiled at the right times, and spoke at the right times. _I've got to stay strong for them… just for a little while longer, just until they leave again_. The bliss of a blade and a bottle of alcohol were biding the time silently, waiting for him to come crawling to them for comfort, so temporary yet so addicting as they dragged him into a blissful oblivion. Despite how transparent he felt, neither of them seemed to notice the building turmoil inside.

It was nearly eight o'clock when his phone began to buzz on the table, demanding his attention. He picked the phone up; **Call from: Levi**. Eren hesitated and looked back and forth, who were both watching the T.V. screen, on which _The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers_ was playing. He stood slowly and Mikasa glanced at him, her brows furrowed and her eyes questioning. "I'll be back in a minute," Eren murmured as he hiked a leg over the back of the couch, managing to ease successfully get onto the other side without his foot catching and sending him into a graceless nosedive. He left the apartment and leaned against the wall next to the door before he accepted the call and raised the phone to his ear, "Hey."

_"Took you long enough you idiot,"_ Levi's voice was an irritated growl but it brought a smile to Eren's face nevertheless. _"There's news, and by news I don't mean good news. I mean the most irritating and frustrating news I've had in a while. Those bags Marion had with him? They had the kids' bodies inside of them. The bodies were identified through dental records. Not only that, but Marion's body was taken to a hospital last night. This afternoon, they went to autopsy it only to find the body missing. I can't believe those fucking idiots. Useless, that's what they are."_ Levi sighed and Eren wouldn't have been surprised if the other man was clenching his fists, looking for an outlet for his anger.

"How the hell is that possible? Is there anything on the tapes?" Levi's reply was lost when the phone was jerked from his hand. Eren looked over to see Mikasa glaring at the phone, which was clenched between her fingers. She looked like she might snap the poor handheld device in half as she raised it to her ear.

"Who is this?" She waited a moment as Levi replied. It must not have been the reply she was looking for because her face twisted into a furious snarl. "Sorry, Eren's unavailable right now, especially for midgets like you. He'll call you back when he has a chance." His hand, still by his ear, dropped to his side, a look of confused shock on his face, "Mikasa!"

The black haired girl's head twisted towards him slowly, her face grim as she slid his cell into her pocket. Eren froze at her look of pure rage. "You're not allowed to talk to the short man tonight," she said slowly, enunciating each word carefully and slowly, as if that would help get the message through his 'thick skull,' as it had been referred to as numerous times. "You're on house arrest. So help me God, don't make me get a tracking bracelet because you know I'll do it."

* * *

In the end Mikasa managed to refrain from slapping a tracking bracelet around Eren's wrist, although whether it was a result of his begging or Armin's reassurances that Eren would either stay put or in Armin's line of sight, Eren was still unsure of. Mikasa had a case the next morning, one concerning the murder of a father, the suspect being the man's own son. The case would be keeping her away but it wouldn't prevent her from calling when she could. She had called Eren's land line three times that morning at seven o'clock, the sound driving Eren from his cozy bed so he could assure her that yes, he was going to spend the day with Armin and that no, he wasn't going to answer Levi's attempts at conversation.

Eren shifted on the chair in Armin's apartment, watching with heavy-lidded eyes as the blonde twirled one screw after another into place. Music played faintly in the background, some radio station that played rock, pop, and alternative. Armin had already voiced his disappointment in the distinct lack of instrumental music, but that had been the last comment made in the last hour as they lapsed into companionable silence. Eren let a long, bored sigh out as he turned his head, cheek pressed into the counter, his face pointing at Armin.

He watched as the blonde raised another screw and lined it up, pressing the screw driver against it and turning it. Armin had gotten quick at it, whereas Eren could still remember the time four or five months ago when the other man barely knew the difference between an Allen wrench and a screwdriver, which was pretty sad considering how intelligent Armin was. Armin glanced up at Eren as he finished twirling the screw into place, already reaching for another. "Are you alright?"

Eren nodded and leaned back, stretching his arms out above his head. He wanted to talk; he wanted to hear the sound of someone's voice. But he wanted someone else's voice in his ears, berating him for every mistake, insulting him with every other sentence, and constantly irritated at one thing or another. Eren sighed again and dropped his hands onto his knees. He scratched absently at his knuckle.

_If only Mikasa hadn't taken my phone… then I could talk to Levi, find out what he was going to say._ But that wasn't the only reason. Was there another reason he longed to hear the other man talk? Was he simply craving the company of someone unpredictable, someone that he didn't know everything about? He didn't know anymore. Armin looked up at him again and a soft laugh bubbled past his lips. "Eren, if you're that bored you could have just asked if we could go somewhere. I don't mind stopping for a while."

Eren smiled sheepishly, "Well, I know you're trying to finish that prototype up… I didn't want to distract you."

Armin waved his hand before dropping it down to the table so he could sweep the screws back into their organized container. "Don't worry about it. Now, let's go get some coffee."

* * *

Only a few people were in the coffee shop; a woman sitting in the corner, typing away at her laptop; a man reading a book; a couple holding hands as they talked quietly; a group of three college-age kids chattering animatedly. Eren swallowed the scalding coffee, the caffeine smashing into his bloodstream and putting a pleasant hum in his head. "So Armin, how are you and Annie doing?" Armin's face burned brightly, the blush visible like a massive beacon burning bright during the night.

"Um, we're good actually… I asked her if she wanted to come over and see a movie sometime. She's coming over Saturday to watch… well, I don't know what to be quite honest." Eren grinned, "I'd say go with a chick-flick but that doesn't seem to be Annie's type. Try a good old tear-jerker or a comedy. Plus there's always _Titanic_ if you run out of ideas. _Schindler's List_ might work. Oh, you guys could watch _Monty Python and the Holy Grail?_"

Armin pressed his hand to his forehead, a grin on his face. "I'll see, I'll see. Hopefully whatever I find won't be something she doesn't like…" Armin sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, "If only I was as good with people as I am with machines. Life would be _so_ much more convenient." Armin sloshed his coffee around in the cup, gnawing on his lip in thought. "Hm, while I'm thinking of it, how's it going with Levi? Are you two still at each other's throats."

Eren shook his head, a smile still gracing his lips. "Nah, not anymore... I think we've managed to reach some middle ground somehow." Armin looked at him, an eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face, like he knew something Eren didn't. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Armin said, waving Eren's question off. "Hm, Mikasa should be done with her case by five or so. Maybe she'll loosen the reins a bit and give you some breathing room."

Eren groaned, "One can only hope. Knowing Mikasa she'll probably try to handcuff me to her and take me to court with her tomorrow. I'm honestly amazed she didn't do that today." Armin clapped a hand over his mouth, fighting to not spray his coffee all over Eren. He swallowed and let his hand drop away. "Eren, I don't think she has handcuffs."

Eren shook his head and looked Armin in the eye, "You never know what Mikasa will have or do. Remember that time she threatened to slice that one kid up and then spent the rest of the period glaring at him and sharpening those pairs of scissors? Does that prove my point?" Armin opened his mouth but no response came out.

"You've got a point there. I actually almost forgot about that to be honest." Eren bobbed his head in agreement, "I probably would have forgotten too had I not been sitting right next to her, watching her sharpen them. That class pure hell. You weren't in there with us, were you? Trust me, you didn't miss out on much." They sat there for a while longer, finishing another coffee each before they left.

* * *

Mikasa came over to Eren's apartment at six thirty, a bag of Chinese takeout clutched in one hand and a movie in the other. They settled down, all three crunched together on the couch as they tucked into their food and started the movie, _The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. Talk was exchanged throughout the movie, comments of "don't do it Mr. Tumnus!" and "Edmund, how could you?" and various quotations of the movie passing back and forth between them.

Eren couldn't remember a time when they hadn't talked in the middle of a movie, either to point out something that the filmmakers had left out or completely changed or to make random and unnecessary comments. They had nearly been kicked out of a movie theater for that once. It was almost like that over the last two days had not occurred at all. Mikasa certainly made a point to stay away from anything relating to police, law, and criminals.

They finished their food halfway through the movie, stacking the Styrofoam cartons on top of each other. Eren twisted around till he could press his back against Mikasa's shoulder, his legs flung over the arm of the couch. Mikasa elbowed him in the back but he knew she didn't mind. They descended into silence, their eyes fixed on the screen, listening to the sounds of the movie and the city.

The sky was pitch black by the time Mikasa and Armin decided that it was time to leave. Armin left first, wrapping both of them in a hug before he waved goodbye and disappeared out the door. Mikasa lingered for a little while longer. Eren made her a cup of coffee and they leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping at the steaming liquid. "Eren…" Mikasa murmured after a while, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "I'm… I'm sorry if you think I overreacted. I… I was terrified of losing you. I nearly lost you once already… Please Eren… don't do something so stupid again."

Eren pulled Mikasa in for a one-armed hug. "Don't worry, I won't." Mikasa nodded into his shoulder and took a breath. She picked her coffee mug up and rinsed it out before she set it in the sink. "I suppose I should give you your phone back." Eren smiled when she handed the phone back.

He only checked it after she had left. **You have 2 Missed Calls and 3 Text Messages**. Eren checked the calls first; one was from Levi, the other was from Connie. He went back and opened the text messages, his eyes skimming the contents.

**To Eren:  
I'm assuming that Mikasa has you under house arrest. There's nothing on the tapes – something corrupted all the data. I'm working on questioning the doctors they had on duty that night.  
From: Levi  
Time Received: 12:42 P.M. 10/03/13**

**To Eren:  
Nobody knows anything - useless idiots, the lot of them. No new tips have come in yet. No new kidnappings as of yet.  
From: Levi  
Time Received: 10:15 P.M 10/03/13**

**To Eren:  
Brat, whenever you get your phone back from the lawyer from hell, tell me when you can make it to the station.  
From: Levi  
Time Received: 9:01 A.M 9 10/04/13**

Eren opened up a new message and shot Levi a quick text: **I'll be in tomorrow morning (9ish)**. He slid the phone shut and set it down on the counter, a small smile creeping up on his face, a warm feeling bubbling in his chest. He wandered into his room, stripping quickly and changing into sweats before he turned off all the lights and slid into his bed, the idiotic smile still on his face.

* * *

_The rustlings of sheets reached his ears before he realized that something heavy and warm was moving overtop him. Eren opened his eyes to the dim room, illuminated only by the silvery stream of iridescent moonlight flowing through the window. He could see the silhouette; pitch black against the feeble moonlight, the milky, silver light reflecting against the short, silky hair, far shorter than most females wore their hair. A face shrouded in shadows hovered above him; perfectly disguised by the looming darkness. The figure slowly moved up until their knees were on either side of Eren's hips, pressing firmly against them. Yep, that was defiantly male._

_Two warm hands slowly edged their way onto his chest, eliciting a shiver as pale lips drew closer, stopping mere inches from Eren's own. Breath, cool and smelling of mint, ghosted over his face. Eren stared up at the shrouded face and, almost on instinct, relaxed as soft, gentle lips pressed against his own. Hands mapped out Eren's chest, leaving fiery trails across his flesh as they wandered upward. Teeth bit down on sweet lips, silently demanding entrance._

_The hands that blazed across his chest were like two agonizingly slow streams of magma. They made their way to the top button of Eren's shirt and tugged until it came undone. The man firmly bit down on his lip again; impatient now. Eren hesitated; wanting so badly to let him in, but unsure if he should. Fiery heat engulfed his cheek as fingers stroked his skin. They moved to grasp his chin, tugging gently at his lower jaw in an odd half-caress. Eren let his lips fall apart and moaned as the smirking man slowly slid his tongue in, his hand dropping back down to Eren's chest. Deft fingers tugged apart button after button until the shirt could no longer cling to his chest and fell away shamelessly to reveal smooth, tan skin and pink buds. _

_The kiss was broken and Eren couldn't help the slight whimper that left his mouth at the lack of warmth against his lips. He received a kiss at the corner of his parted lips before those soft, skilled lips left a trail of butterfly kisses leading to the juncture between Eren's neck and shoulder. His warm tongue darted out, rasping across a small patch of skin before lips and teeth joined in to suck and nip. The man received a moan for his effort as he trailed feather-light fingers up across Eren's abdomen. The moan shifted to a gasp and his back arched back as those fingers teased his nipple. He slowly realized that his boxers were becoming painfully tight, leaving him uncomfortable and mad with the desire for release._

_The man's lips vacated the spot on Eren's neck, now cold and sore, and returned to his lips. Eren wasted no time as he eagerly parted his kiss-swollen lips, silently begging him to take the invitation. Eren almost didn't register the now familiar muscle as the man's hands dipped down to trace his waistband. Skilled fingers danced across his hipbone, teasing him by edging towards his crotch before slipping farther up his abdomen. Eren groaned and whimpered in frustration as the man leaned back, pressing his hands against Eren's hips._

_Blue-gray eyes glinted as the moonlight hit them just right, staring down at him with wanton passion and want that burned to be satisfied._

Eren sat up, gasping for air and fighting his mind, which was spinning with confusion. Why was it so hot? Why were his boxers so tight? What the hell time is it? Either it was late or early enough to be dark that much was certain. Eren backtracked to the second question, his mind freezing as it replayed in his head. _Oh fuck me…did I really…I…I need a cold shower…_ He stumbled out of his room and into the bathroom, the painful constriction of his boxers not really helping.

He turned the shower on as cold as it would go and nearly ripped his clothes as he yanked them off. He would have leapt into the shower had it not been for the thought that Mikasa would kill him if she found out that he broke his neck jumping into a shower to get rid of an erection. The frigid water pounded into his back, turning his blood to ice within moments. Eren wrapped his arms around his chest as he waited for the freezing water to do its job.

It wasn't working. His thoughts kept turning to burning touches, hot lips and smoldering eyes, merely adding fuel to the rampant fire of lust that was waging a war in his mind. Against every instinct that screamed no, his had traveled down until his fingers were brushing against his raging erection, eliciting shivers that had nothing to do with the long forgotten water. His fingers ghosted down his length before he rubbed his thumb along the slit at the head, a trail of precum already beginning to leak out. Eren bit back a moan as his fingers curled tighter and he ran his hand up and down his throbbing length.

He bit his lip, holding back the needy moans that burned his throat, aching to escape. Everything was forgotten as his world narrowed down to relieving the pressure that filled him. His movements were shaky as he jerked his hand up and down his length, indecent moans and careless whimpers falling from his lips unchecked in his pleasured bliss.

He could still feel the other's touch, still imagine the fiery trails left on his skin, and still feel the heated blue-gray gaze. It wasn't his hand that he wanted to bring relief; it was another. The image was fixed in his mind; a certain raven-haired man, small in stature, but explosive in personality.

Eren felt the tight coil of heat clench even tighter, the bliss of release so close. His back arched and frigid water splashed onto his face, muffling the gasped moan of Levi as it fell from his lips. His body trembled from his orgasm as his hand fell to his side and his knees buckled, bringing him to the slick floor. He watched as the white fluid was slowly washed away by the ever-frigid water and as he came down from the best high of his life. Slowly realization of what he just did dawned on him, on just how screwed he was.

_Either this is a one-time thing or I really do like…love? Levi?_

**Chapter 9: End**

* * *

Edit: Many thanks to **calleyrose**, who stepped up and helped me rewrite this smut scene! Haha, goodnight you lovely darlings.**  
**

**sassychina:** Thank you~  
**calleyrose:** Good point, good point. And you have an interesting theory. I love hearing theories because then I know how close or how a person is to the dot and how much of their memory needs to be wiped in order to remove that theory (mwahahaha).  
**Aozumi:** I always feel like Mikasa has a special grudge against rapists and that's the whole reason she's a lawyer. And if you draw any scenes I would _love _to see them!  
**layer14:** Not mean. I can barely tell my friends that I don't like a song they show me, let alone be mean to someone unless they make me mad (I'm very shy). Just slightly sadistic when it comes to stories.  
**TheOtaku2:** I tried. I really did. And thank you~  
**forever-fangirling:** We shall have to see. By we, I of course mean you. And Levi... his past will come in eventually. Once I figure out the right time.


	10. Ilse Langner

**END GAME**

**Chapter 10: Ilse Langner**

* * *

Levi slammed the folders onto the desk, his face twisted into an incensed scowl. "There were three kidnappings, _three_, in one night alone! Damn it all to hell!" He whirled around and began to pace, his hands clenched behind his back. There was nothing new to go off of, only the same clues and connections as before. None of the parents had heard or seen a single thing, the cameras at one of the homes failed to pick up any footage whatsoever, the video feed too corrupted to even be accessed. _It's like playing a game of cat and mouse, only the cat is invisible and we're sitting ducks, useless and in plain sight._

Levi sighed in frustration. How could there be nothing new to go on? There were no signs of struggle, no splatters of blood, and no fingerprints. They had nothing to go on. They were at a dead end, with three more children at risk of being murdered. Levi pinched the bridge of his nose and twisted around to face Eren, taking several calming breaths as he did so. "This is absurd…" he muttered, glowering at the white cinderblock walls of the station.

His gaze flickered to Eren; the other man was sitting in a chair, staring at the ground, his face pale and drawn. He had said very little so far, although considering that there was nothing new to discuss, it made things a little harder. Even so, normally the obnoxious brown-haired boy found some excuse or another to talk. Perhaps getting shot the other day had shaken him up more than he was letting on. That thought brought another pang of guilt along with it, dragging at his tired mind. _He's alright now, so stop feeling guilty you moron._

Levi dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling, running the facts through his head. To say that the case was going in circles was an understatement of extraordinary proportions. It was more like they had taken five steps along the path of the case before slamming face-first into a wall, one too damn tall and too damn thick to break or climb over. There was nothing resembling a ladder to help them over, nothing to give them any leads. _This case is going to drive me mad._ Levi sighed in exasperation and snapped his head back upright. "Have you got any ideas Eren?"

Eren glanced up before his eyes darted back down to his hands, scratching at his knuckles anxiously. "Nothing…" he mumbled, his voice barely audible over the sound of Petra beating Oluo over the head on the other side of the station. Levi tapped his foot on the ground and his frown deepened. Things had gone from bad to worse, and there seemed to be no hope of finding anything that might give them a lead on the case. Levi ran his fingers through his hair. The red slash meant something, but what? Could it be the sign of a gang or a cult, or even a radical religious group? Aliens even? Levi scoffed at the last idea; that was something that Hanji would have declared as a possibility. She believed in the paranormal and certainly in extraterrestrial life forms. The deranged woman even carried a bag of purified salt and holy water with her, along with a silver rosary. _She watches too many sci-fi movies._

Levi clucked his tongue when he realized how far off topic his thoughts had gone, tugging them back. _Perhaps it's time to consult a specialist. We need Ilse._

* * *

A woman of average height with shoulder-length dark brown hair that flopped in front of her brown right eye opened the door, the expression on her face irritated before recognition registered on her face and a smile tugged her lips upwards. "Levi, it's been a while! How have you been? Good I hope, although knowing you, I'm not positive."

Levi shrugged his jacket off as Ilse Langner welcome them into her spacious apartment, shutting the door behind them. The apartment was just as Levi remembered it; white walls covered with photographs of distant places, dark-brown hardwood floors, furniture made of wood and cushions in bright, expressive colors, and a replica of the solar system hanging from her ceiling, just above the coffee table. Books and papers adorned almost every surface. The spaces that weren't occupied by books and papers were instead occupied by vials of discolored liquids and various floating things. Most of them had lids on them. Levi couldn't help but wince at the mess. If Ilse would give him an hour, just a single hour, he could have her place cleaner than an operating room.

"I'm assuming you haven't murdered Zoe yet, which is good. I need my research partner to remain intact, especially once I'm allowed to get access to the body! The patient lived with a bullet in his skull for three weeks. Is that not the coolest thing ever?" She must have noted Eren, who was probably looking at her with an expression of vague horror. Levi didn't bother to turn around to check, instead pulling out the file from his black briefcase and dropping it onto her coffee table with a smack, narrowly missing a container that held an eyeball in a clear white-yellow liquid. "Hey, watch the experiments!"

Levi rolled his eyes and turned to Ilse and he folded his arms across his chest, his fingers tapping his elbow in irritation. Ilse and Hanji were so damn irritating sometimes that he could hardly stand either of them. Maybe that was why he rarely ever visited Ilse, preferring to text the woman instead so that way she had to stay more-or-less on task. "Ilse, we came for your help, not to hear about the latest people you've cut up or what organs you've put in different solutions to see if they'll last longer. Just look at the report will you?"

Ilse grimaced and stuck the tip of her tongue out but she sat down on the couch anyways and picked up the folder. "You two go ahead and make yourselves comfortable," she said with a wave of her hand, the other going up to her head to pull the pencil from behind her ear. "And by the way, that solution has kept that eye fresh for three weeks at room temperature, so don't even _think_ about knocking it over. And if you feel the need for a drink, avoid the top shelf at all costs. And any Mason jars you see. I can't guarantee that it's all safe for human consumption."

Levi and Eren sat down and exchanged looked; Levi's was exasperated and Eren's was confused and startled. _"There's another like Hanji?"_ Eren mouthed, _"Is that even possible?"_ Levi shrugged his shoulders, not bothering to respond. If Eren thought that those two were bad separately, he did _not_ want to see it when both women got in the same room, or worse yet, a science convention. They had gotten him to go along with them _one_ time and one time only. It had been an event more akin to Hell on earth rather than a science convention.

The sound of Ilse flipping page was the only sound in the apartment for a long time, filling the void of silence. Ilse would let out the occasional hum, some of them intrigued, some of them mystified. The time came at last when she flipped the last page over and restacked them, tapping the papers against her knee to get them back into a nice and neat stack before she closed the folder.

"You two certainly have a strange case…" The words were murmured as she stared at the wall just beyond Eren's head, near where she had a diagram of a bird's wings tacked up. Levi watched as she tapped her chin with the pencil, the pink eraser hitting the tip of her nose before falling forwards only to come back up and hit her nose again. "That red slash… it sounds familiar. What do you guys think you're dealing with, a small group of people operating on their own, a gang, some kind of radical cult, or mafia? I doubt that either of you think anything from the supernatural origin could be behind this, so I'll leave that out… for now."

Levi glared at Ilse before he sighed and leaned back, pulling his leg up till his ankle rested on his knee. "We're not sure…" he said truthfully, "There's nothing giving us a clue as to whom or what it might be."

Ilse nodded and tapped her nose again, her eyes fixed thoughtfully on the folder. "… Those old cases… Did anyone ever find a culprit for any of the kidnappings? Any leads at all, other than the ones that match up to the ones that you have now of course."

"Nothing," Eren said, breaking his prolonged silence. "The only thing we found was that all of the children had or have the same blood type. Four of the children from the previous case were never found while the rest were burned. So far we've had three charred skeletons." Ilse nodded and a grim frown slowly cropped up on her face.

"The odds are not in your favor boys," she said after a few moments. "This case could end just like the last one; suddenly dropping off without another trace until it crops back up again in God knows how many years. Or these kidnappings could keep going. You never know. I can't see anything to help you guys out. I'm sorry about that, really. The mark sounds familiar though… I just can't quite put my finger on it." Ilse handed the folder back to Levi, a regretful smile on her face and led them to the door. "I'm sorry I couldn't help Levi, Eren, truly, I am." She gripped the edge of the door, her brown eyes burning into Levi's. "I'll find out what I can. It might take me a while though. I'll let you know when I find something. Until then, stay safe Levi. Try not to screw up till then."

* * *

Six more children were reported missing by the afternoon of the eighth of October, bringing the total up to twelve children. The three children that had been kidnapped on the fifth had been found, their charred skeletons lying in the middle of the remains of a bonfire-esque setup. They had been found on the sixth, the day two additional children went missing, children by the names of Antonio Gonzalez and Lucia Long. Then Joshua Green and Camilla Edwards on the seventh, followed by Bruce Springs and Molly Whitney being reported missing on the morning of the eighth.

The only thing Eren and Levi had to show for their efforts was a static-filled video feed of a strange person entering the Long's apartment and not coming back out, leaving the window in Lucia's room half open. No contact was made with any of the parents, no ransom notes left. Twelve missing children, six of which were already little more than scorched skeletons stuck underground in caskets. It was disheartening when they looked at the big picture, especially considering the case from '89. The likelihood of finding any of the kids, living instead of lying in a pile of ashes, was slim to none if the pattern stayed consistent, which it probably would.

Eren leaned back, his head hitting the back of the couch as he stared up at the white ceiling. The turmoil in his mind was unbearable, a mixture of confusion and irritation fed from what seemed like a million, no, a billion different sources. Nothing seemed to make sense, not anymore. He was waging a war against himself, fighting to keep his mind on task, fighting to keep it from straying to the path lined with thoughts of Levi. But in the end, didn't they all seem to lead to the gray eyed man? Hadn't it been like that since the first case? It seemed like so long ago since they had met, but in reality, hadn't it been a month at the most?

_A month since the first case and now we're on our third case… Time flies doesn't it? Hm… I never did finish unencrypting those folders... The folders! _Eren lurched back upright so he could shake the mouse, realization slamming into him. The screen brightened and Eren hesitated a moment before he clicked on one of the folders, a vague memory pressing against his mind. There was something he had forgotten, something he had overlooked. There was something that had been right there from the very beginning, a clue leading to something else.

The thought nagged him, driving him onwards. _But what is it?!_ There had been something, a mention of red slashes, children, and 1989, a mention of those somewhere, somewhere, but where? A memory of something so fleeting that it had been deemed unimportant at the time. Or was he just going mad, his mind so fixated on the case that he was seeing the things he wanted to see in places they weren't really?

He opened the folder he had copied the files and data from the Masters case into. He only put two words into the search bar; **red slash**. He had seen it before, somewhere other than the current case, he was certain of it. A small loading circle appeared and it moved slowly as it gradually searched through all of the data and narrowed down his search. Eren waited with bated breath as the documents and folders slowly disappeared one by one.

He was left with two things; one of the encrypted folders, an accessible folder, and a document simply labeled with a '_T_,' something that he had overlooked the first time he had gone through since the beginning contents had seemed unimportant concerning the case. The pointer hovered over the document for a moment before Eren opened it up, the word document springing up after a moment, the scrollbar quickly narrowing as the document totaled the pages and words up. Eren selected the Find option and mulled over the choices he had. His fingers darted across the keyboard as he typed in the first selection; **1989**. After a few moments he was redirected to page 49 of 50. The text near the center of the page, bolded, centered, and separated from the rest, was highlighted. Eren glanced at the information beneath it, his breath bated as he read through it.

**_1989_**

**_01/11/1989:  
_**_Project E begins. M wants to take many; more success she says. G says we need to be discreet. S says that they're all idiots and that we should test the virus before they actually use live subjects. M says that there's no time, that she's done waiting. I can't say I blame her. We've been waiting long enough. It's time for the plan to begin. G is still making a fuss about it all, but he'll see soon. We need the subjects and we need them now. L and J are the best; they can get the subjects without getting caught. Even if they do, they'll die before they talk. Although they had taken the liberty of adding special touches to the subject's rooms; red slashes left on the walls, just above vacant beds. How sadistic of those two. Twenty-four isn't that many. G is just bitching about it too much. He knows the projected survival rate. He should be thankful we're not taking more. He should be thankfully we're not considering taking his once it's matured. God knows M would stick that kid full of the virus if it didn't have a chance of killing the mother at the same time._

**_2/01/1989:  
_**_The first two have been taken. S has already given them the virus. She's unsure of how long the virus will take; it varies from blood sample to blood sample. M is impatient for results._

**_2/05/1989:  
_**_Both original subjects are now dead. C is burning them right now. L and J have already brought back two more, a little younger this time. M is hoping for success._

**_2/12/1989:  
_**_Four dead now, four more captured. L and J got bold this time. M is becoming irate at the lack of success. S and G are working on ways to make the virus compatible. I'm unsure if they've had any luck as of yet._

**_2/15/1989:  
_**_Success! One of the subjects survived from the last batch. S nearly thought we had lost her at first when she began to flatline but she managed to restart the heart. The subjects name is Clara Bell. They're giving her to E so he can raise her. L and J brought in two more kids._

**_2/20/1989:  
_**_Another success, that's two out of ten. S says that it's pure luck that the virus is compatible with them, especially since only one out of every hundred or so blood samples actually took to the virus without destroying itself. M doesn't care; she's set on obtaining a few more successful subjects before she stops. L and J brought in five more this time. The subject, Fares Ekman, is being sent to H._

**_2/26/1989:  
_**_None of the five survived. We're 2 for 15 now. M is infuriated by that. She nearly killed S earlier. L and J brought in three more children. I think one is S's daughter. She stayed away from those kids and kept crying about how it was her fault. I'm not sure what she did but it must have been serious. _

**_3/01/1989:  
_**_Only one survived; not S's daughter. It was the boy, his birth name being Johann Bloch. He'll be sent to B. S isn't talking now; she's just staring at the body of the girl, horrified at what she's done. I can't say that I feel sorry for her. Once you're in, you never leave. I'm afraid that M might have her disposed of though, especially if and when she becomes a liability. L and J brought back two more this time._

**_3/09/1989:  
_**_We thought one of the boy's might live this time; he lasted until this morning, when his heart finally gave out. It's sad really, how he was so close to living. S doesn't look too good. G is refraining from doing anything that would get his own kid pulled in, even though the brat is still in the womb. L and J brought three more in. M says that these will be the last ones, success or not. She's afraid of the police catching on, afraid of L or J making that one fatal slip._

**_3/15/1989:  
_**_The final round of subjects brought one more success; Lin Yao, who's being handed off to D tomorrow morning. S has gone missing. She's probably dead. It doesn't surprise me. M doesn't need to threaten us in order to keep our mouths shut. We know what she'll do. We know she'll keep us alive for days on end in an endless agony as she takes her sweet time before killing us. No, none of us will speak, not if we want to survive this. We'll wait for the kids to mature before the next stage begins. Till then, I'm being sent to watch the Swedish Mafia. Let's just hope I come out without a bullet in the brain._

There was only one entry left on the last page, separated by the others by a few spaces, no year title inserted above it.

**_9/17/2013:  
_**_M is dead. G killed her last night. He says he's going to change things now, this time, they'll be better. He says he's going to lead us to a new Golden Age. I'm not sure I believe him. I'm not sure I can. He thinks I haven't noticed but I have. I've seen L and J loitering about. I found the cameras hidden in my apartment. They're coming for me. I won't live much longer, especially since I let some things slip. They won't send C of course; he can't risk C botching my execution with his stupidity. I think they've drugged him too, given him the virus or something. Either way, it's going to be L or J coming for me. They're the best we, they, have. There's no point in protective custody or running away. They'll find me no matter what. But maybe, just maybe, I can put a bullet in J's brain, maybe even L's, before they put one in mine._

Eren stared at the text for several long moments, the pieces slowly falling into place. Masters had been a part of this, whatever _this_ was. Marion had been a part of it too based off the assumption that he had been fully aware that those bags he had dragged contained bodies. The doctor, Meridew, hell, he had probably been a part of it too, part of an older division of it, but the same thing nevertheless. They were experimenting on these kids, filling them with God knew what, seeing who survived and who didn't. Eren felt sick on his stomach at the thought of being strapped on a table, unable to move as the needle bearing his death drew ever closer. God, those kids must have been terrified.

Eren highlighted the text and printed the selection, the two pages worth of information printing quickly. It was too late to take it down to the station now and he still didn't know Levi's address. He'd had to wait until the morning. Eren fired a text at Levi and hoped that the man would look at it by tomorrow morning. Admittedly, tomorrow morning was only twenty minutes away if a person really wanted to get technical, but as twelve o'clock wasn't a time when people were usually awake, it was safe to assume that a more logical hour would be one when the sun was actually in the sky. Eren shut his laptop down and left the papers in the printer. He rubbed at his eyes, both exhausted and wide-awake. It was going to be a long, sleepless night.

* * *

Levi stared questioningly at Eren once he had finished looking over the pages. "You're a bigger idiot than I thought," he said with a sigh, tossing the papers onto his desk. "I can't believe you completely skipped over something like this. Although… I suppose it's a tad excusable since we really had no idea that these were connected till now."

Eren shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, staring at a fixed point over Levi's head. He couldn't meet the other's eyes, not right now. It was just too… strange. Eren nodded, "I've already started unencrypting the folder again. I'm not sure how long it'll take, but hopefully it won't be too long."

"Don't hope," Levi said, leaning his head into his hand, his black hair falling across his face. Eren's eyes were drawn to Levi's face like moths to a light; irresistible and deadly. "Hope is something you start to lose after you've been in this line of work for a while. Sure, some people hold onto it, but in the end it all seems to come down to luck and skill. Either you're dead on the ground or you're standing. In the end, things rarely come down to how much hope you've got inside you. It always seems to come down to the winner being whoever is more likely to take the final risk. So tell me Eren, why hope for an outcome when you can force it to happen?"

Eren couldn't formulate a response for that. "Just tell me when you find an answer," Levi said after he watched Eren frown and think for a while. The sound of a phone ringing jarred them from their world, which had narrowed down from the noisy, cluttered office down to the two of them. Or at least, that's what it had done for Eren.

"This is 911, what is your emergency?" Nanaba's voice carried across the station, which was relatively quiet. "Levi and Eren? Alright, I'll get them. What's the address?" Both of their heads rose as their names were mentioned. Eren could see Nanaba scribbling something on a piece of paper. "Yes, I'll give it to them now. They'll be there soon." Nanaba dropped the phone back into the cradle and practically sprinted across the station. He pressed the paper into Levi's hand before he spun away.

"Is it another kidnapping?" Eren questioned, leaning to try and see the paper in Levi's hand. He couldn't read the text upside-down so he sat back and waited for Levi to say something. Levi looked up at Eren, his pale face grim and his eyes narrowed. "Not a kidnapping this time," he said. "No, this time it's a murder."

**Chapter 10: End**

* * *

Heh heh, things are being tied together. Things are in motion now, _finally_.  
On another note; Guys, I was being **dead serious** about telling me how to improve the last scene from Chp8. If _anyone_ is willing to endure me sending them smut-oriented scenes and can help me improve on them, you're more likely to see more of them. Seriously, that is an area that desperately needs to be improved. I'd ask my RL writing friends but neither of them like yaoi or write smut. As far as I know. So please, if anyone is willing to help, just PM me about it. I would really love to include more in later chapters and to rewrite the last one and improve it drastically.

Also, I'm planning on starting two more stories, both AoT/SnK. One will come out on Halloween as it will be Halloween-themed. There will be no romance, just action and the works. If there's anyone you want to see in a specific costume, just let me know. The other one will be longer and is projected to come out Nov. 1. I am also open to you guys PMing with requests for stories, which do not necessarily have to be AoT/SnK.

**calleyrose:** Of course I won't tell you, that would ruin the surprise! An author must guard the plot with their life!  
**Hitagi-San:** And I not-so-secretly hope it gets better.  
**blackirishawk:** ... You're gonna be waiting a while... Sorry...


	11. Dead and Gone

**A slight warning before the chapter: _Gore_. _Very_ descriptive gore. As in I think I detailed it a bit too much. Sorry. Sorry that I also forgot to put this here the first time round. Thanks for the reminder calleyrose.**

**END GAME**

**Chapter 11: Dead and Gone**

* * *

Eren and Levi took a taxi to the center of Shiganshina District where the apartment complex where the murders had occurred, as Levi had clarified on the taxi ride over. The scene had been cleared of people, both neighbors and not who milled anxiously around the outskirts of the perimeter of patrol cars, barricades, and yellow tape. A few people had been pulled aside for questioning, huddled by the sides of patrol cars, their eyes wide with terror. Reporters pressed against the barriers and tape, attempting to get ahold of an officer who would talk at the current time. Not many were even bothering to glance at the reporters, much less talk to them.

Nac Tius met them outside of the complex and took them up to the third floor, where the murders had occurred. Mina Carolina and Samuel Price were waiting outside of the apartment, their guns pointed down at the ground and their faces tight, their eyes roaming the corridor every few moments. They only managed terse nods to the approaching three. Both of them kept their fingers on the triggers and Eren was certain that the safeties were off.

Eren wasn't prepared for the bodies to still be inside. The stench of blood slammed into him before he had even walked into the apartment, making his stomach twist and heave. Seeing the bodies lying on the floor didn't help either. Eren grimaced and pressed his hand against his mouth, fighting the urge to either vomit or turn around and walk away until the bodies were cleared of the gore that covered them. He wanted to look away but a kind of horrified fascination held his eyes on the victims. He knew he had killed a man before, two even, but those memories were hazy and almost forgotten, hidden behind a gauzy veil of memory. This was here and now and he had a clear mind for the images to be absorbed into, not one filled with unquenchable rage and fear.

There was a man with closely cropped brown hair lying in the center of the living room, just in front of a light green couch. His face was pressed into the plush white carpet, a congealing crimson stain turning the back of his gray shirt dark red while a large puddle of blood resided beneath his limp and lifeless body. Vacant hazel eyes stared at the wall to the man's right and a small trail of blood leaked from the corner of his slack mouth. His shirt had been torn in places, revealing countless lacerations across his back. Even from where Eren was standing just inside the doorway, he could see bones, both ribs and the spinal column, white and glistening red with blood, exposed beneath the shredded skin. A knife lay a few feet away from the man's head, the blade silver in the light beneath the thick coating of blood that covered it from hilt to tip.

Eren tore his eyes away from the man but they only found the woman next. A breeze from the radiator next to her body caused her body to sway as it dangled from the ceiling, her neck bent at an unnatural angle and a thick rope tight around her neck; a noose. Her hair moved in the breeze, dark ginger curls that had become dark with blood at the ends. The rope around her neck was tied to a hook that had been driven through the ceiling, probably solely for the purpose of hanging her. Her stomach was stained red, with blood still dripping away from the torn and bloodied cream-colored blouse that clung to her body. Each droplet splashed down into a small puddle that was steadily growing larger.

She hadn't been killed there though. A second bloodstain, nearly as large as the man's, was about six feet away from the woman's body, with smears of blood in the carpet from where she had been dragged. There was also a yellow piece of paper attached to her forehead. He couldn't tell if it had been stapled or taped; he could only tell that something was keeping it there. "What are their names?" Levi's voice broke the silence as he addressed someone. Eren ripped his eyes away from the body and his eyes landed on a person, one who was thankfully living. The man, Daz Smith, consulted the notepad in his hand.

"They were David Smith and Eliza Elliot respectively," Daz said, pointing at the man and woman in turn. "Their deaths were reported forty-five minutes ago, when their neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, came over to bring back a book that she had borrowed from Elliot. The door had been left unlocked, so Mrs. Johnson came in, saw the bodies, and called the police. Concerning the victims, Elliot and Smith were engaged, set to be married in January. Elliot worked for Wells Fargo in one of their program testing groups. Smith had a job as a bartender at the Mellow Mushroom on the corner of Elm and Cherry Street. We'll have more waiting on you back at the station, if you would like to look around."

Levi nodded as he pulled two pairs of black gloves from his pockets, one of which he wordlessly passed to Eren. "That would be good," Levi said. He wasted no further time as he approached Smith's body and pulled the shirt up, inspecting the man's back. He was silent for a moment, the fingers of the hand not holding the shirt twitching. "I can count twenty-eight clear wounds in his back, although with all the blood and muscle ripped up it's hard to be certain."

Eren hesitated a moment before he moved around the couch, making an effort to keep away from both the bloodstains while maneuvering his way over to Elliot's body. The woman was small, and even though her feet were several inches off the ground, her drooping forehead was almost level with the top of Eren's. The note on her forehead had been taped into place, the edges curling as it fluttered in the breeze that came from the radiator next to her. He straightened the curling corners of the yellow paper as he read the words that had been typed on it with black ink, crisp and neat and totally untraceable. There was a single red slash beneath the words, hopefully made from paint and not blood.

_A game of the ages, we bring to you.  
Can you play it all the way through?  
None of their sins, we shall pardon.  
Bring your best to the garden._

Eren pulled the note away, holding it delicately between his forefinger and thumb as he brought it over to Levi, who was still examining Smith and the area surrounding him. "Levi, you might want to look at this."

Levi glanced up and wordlessly took the note. His eyes narrowed as he took it in, his gray eyes wide and glacier-cold. "This is a game…?" His voice was quiet and cold, void of anything that might give away the thoughts running through his head. No inflection was needed to see the raw fury in Levi's eyes, burning silently in the gray depths. Levi straightened up and held the note back out to Eren. "We'll need to move fast. They're planning to strike again. Daz! Get the paramedics up here so they can start loading the bodies up."

Daz nodded and ducked out of the apartment, his footsteps audible until the stairwell door closed behind him. Levi moved over to Elliot's body and inspected it, looking but not touching. "We'll have to wait for them to be moved and examined by the coroners," he murmured. "But there's the matter of this." Levi shoved a large plastic ziplock bag into Eren's hands. The knife was in it, the blood coating smearing a bit on the clear interior. "There's something etched into the blade but we're required to get the blood tested before we clean it. You're in charge of getting the sample. Petra will show you how." Eren gripped the bag in one hand, the note in the other. "What do you want me to do with their note?"

Levi turned back around, "Hold onto it. Try not to lose it. We'll analyze it and see what we can find out when we get back to the station. We'll have about four hours while Hanji gets the autopsy reports completed."

* * *

Eren dropped the note off at the station and dragged Petra with him to the coroner's office, the same place that Zoe was employed at. Petra took him straight to the lab room where they took blood, hair, and semen samples in order to have them analyzed locally before being sent out for national examination if that step was required.

They had arrived a little over half an hour ago. The blood had already been swabbed and placed into a vial and they had already dusted the dark brown handle for fingerprints. The hilt was lacking in fingerprints and it wasn't promising that the blood would be anyone's but that of the two victims. Eren and Petra sat patiently against the wall, waiting for the knife to finish being cleaned of the coating of blood and bits of muscle and skin that persisted in clinging to the surface.

The floor, white tiles speckled with dark brown spots, kept looking like they were stained with dried blood. The images of the victims was still with him, forcing their way to the front of his mind every time he thought he had finally beat them back. _That could have been me… Less gruesome, certainly, but that still could have been me._ He could have died that day by the warehouses. He could have been lying in the morgue days ago, having Zoe cut him open and examine him, pulling the bullet out and closing him up before they stuck him in a coffin. Eren clenched his hands into fists on top of his knees, his nails digging cruelly into his palms. _This world is cruel._

A clamor from outside of the lab brought both his and Petra's head up as they twisted in their seats to look through the tinted glass behind them. Four paramedics came in wheeling two gurneys; two paramedics for each. Both of the gurneys had been were bearing body-shaped lumps that had been placed into dark blue body bags.

One of them, the ones in front, had run into a bulletin board hanging on the wall and had knocked it down. Papers had scattered everywhere and the thumbtacks were jarred loose. One of the men cursed but it was barely audible through the layer of glass and metal separating them. Eren watched as he hurriedly scraped the papers and bulletin board to the side, clearing away so they could get the gurneys through. Eren watched as they passed by and kept watching until they turned into the morgue section of the office, disappearing from his line of sight.

"It's sad," Petra murmured, her eyes following the gurneys before returning to the white-washed walls in front of them. "Those were two lives that didn't need to be taken… They had a lot to live for." She sighed and looked up at the ceiling, her eyes sad. "When you're a police officer, you see a lot of death and violence, so much that it's almost unbelievable. But you Eren… you haven't been around enough of this to see just how dark it can get. We never know what we're going to see next. Hell, we never know when we're going to die. But I do know that a job like this has a bright side, no matter how dark it seems to get. You just have to have faith and courage." Petra looked over at Eren, a small smile spread across her face. "You'll find yours; you just have to look for it."

She watched his face for a moment, her smile slipping away and her face going pink with embarrassment when she noticed the startled look that had appeared on his face. "Sorry, you probably don't want to hear something like that right now." Eren shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. "… No, it's fine. I don't mind that, you just kind of surprised me. You don't normally say such deep things."

Petra offered a small smile before she sighed and leaned back in the chair. They lapsed back into silence, the only sounds being the soft hiss of water, the banging of the paramedics as they left, and the muted street noises that occasionally rose to a level loud enough to be heard inside. "Eren… you like Levi, don't you?" Eren clapped a hand over Petra's mouth, his eyes boring straight into hers.

"Shut up Petra," he muttered as he pulled his hand away, opting to glare at the ground instead of at the orange-haired girl. Petra smirked and tapped his shoulder a few times, her hand gentle and warm in the cold room. The sound of water fell away and Petra stood to retrieve the knife. "Don't worry," she said, "Keep away from the height jokes and you'll probably be fine."

* * *

The knife clattered onto the desk, an inch or so away from a yellow folder and the note, which had been copied onto another piece of paper, the original probably going somewhere where they could ensure that it would remain intact. Levi was still standing outside taking a smoke break. Eren pulled up a chair and dropped into it. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his middle finger and thumb and exhaled, his brow scrunching up into lines of concentration.

There was nothing about this case that made any sense. There were so many questions that he had, yet most of them couldn't be answered. Who was kidnapping the children and murdering people? What experiments were they performing on the children? What happened to those survivors from twenty-four years ago? Why would they suddenly start murdering people? Why, why, why? Too many questions, too few clues for any hope of finding an answer through the web of confusion that the enemy had spun.

Something tapped his shoulder and Eren jumped, his pulse skyrocketing for a moment. He looked up to see gray orbs staring down at him, an eyebrow arched above one of them. Levi retracted his hand and sat down, "Sorry. Zoe had Moblit call to inform me that she's nearly done with the autopsy on Smith. She'll be done with Elliot in about two hours." Levi picked up the knife and slid it out of the plastic bag, his eyes coming up as he spun the blade between his hands, two fingers rolling the blade over and three holding the hilt. After several rotations of the blade Levi tossed the knife up and plucked it from the air with startling ease, the blade clenched loosely but firmly between three fingers. He offered the hilt out to Eren. "Tell me what you see."

Eren took the knife from Levi's hand and glanced up at the man before he looked at the blade. It was similar to that of a hunting knife, albeit it was as long as a cleaver from tip to handle. Both edges of the blade were sharp and it drew to a deadly point at the end. It was made more for stabbing, not carving, but it was still capable of producing fine slices. The handle itself was dark brown, studded with small metal circles in the handle. Parts of it were darker from where the blood had stained the wood. Eren rolled the knife over, his eyes sliding over the blade.

The side of the blade that had been facing the ground had something etched into it, just above the handle. Eren brought it closer to his face so he could inspect the mark. It was a letter, a 'T' to be precise, about the side of the nail on his pinkie. It had been etched deeply but probably still a little less than halfway through the blade. "There's a letter carved into it. Although I'm not sure if it's for a brand of utensils or if it was later applied." Eren held the knife back out, turning it in his hand so that the handle faced Levi.

Levi nodded and took it back. He set it down on the desk and rubbed at his chin, biting his lip as he zoned out, lost in his thoughts. Eren took the few moments of relief to take a few calming breaths, still fighting to get his facing pulse under control, no longer hammering from the surge of startled adrenaline alone.

Levi scowled and picked the note up. "I'm willing to bet that they're planning to strike again. Based on the last line, they plan to murder in a garden. The only problem is that there are a million and one gardens that those bastards could be talking about. We've got an entire city to cover and too little manpower to cover everything that could be a possible target. Hanji will be getting us medical records for them to see if they can be matched through those. Daz also had Erd find everything on Smith and Elliot that he could, ranging from drivers licences to graduation certificates and arrest records. I gleamed over them a little after I finished interviewing their idiot neighbors. They were described as a 'happily engaged couple.'"

Levi took the note into his other hand so he could pass the folder to Eren. "From what I've read, the file says otherwise." Eren took the file and skimmed over the information. _Two charges of domestic violence against Smith in the past three months; couple counseling; psychological therapy for Elliot… Smith was an ex-con, convicted for an attempted robbery of a convenience store. Elliot was charged for illegal prostitution. Quite the charming pair we have here._ Eren glanced back up at Levi. "Wasn't one of the lines in the note involving something about sins and pardoning?"

Levi nodded, "'None of their sins, we shall pardon.' That only narrows the list down to about the entire city. Less if you don't count minor things such as speeding tickets."

Eren grimaced, "Even so, that's a lot of people that are possible candidates for the next strike. The murders happened in the Shiganshina district… would it be safe to assume for now that the next attack will occur in the same place? Unless of course they're following the pattern of the kidnappings, or should I say the lack thereof? So when we get down to it, we have no idea who or what they're going to hit next."

Levi nodded and set the note down on the desk. "Hanji needs to hurry up with those bodies. We might find something out on the reports."

* * *

Zoe pulled the sheet away from Smith's body first, leave his torso exposed. It was a pale, colorless white mixed with splotches of blue and green across his abdomen. His body was clean of blood. If it hadn't been for the lack of the rise and fall of his chest, he could almost have been a sleeping man instead of a dead one, albeit a very sickly sleeping man. Zoe took the clipboard from the end of the table and flipped the top page before she began to recite the report.

"Smith was beaten across his front. Judging by the size and color of the marks, I believe that he was beaten was bare hands and feet, not a blunt object. Aside from that the front side of his body is not damaged. His back, however, is another story. He has a total of thirty-seven stab wounds ranging from a half inch deep to the point where they're nearly through his ribcage. High right lung appears to have been nicked, along with several lacerations along his stomach, kidneys, liver, and intestines. He lost about three quarters of his blood, which ultimately led to his death."

She set the clipboard back into the bin attached to the table and moved over to the other table and pulled the white sheet away. Aside from the Y-shaped incision that Zoe had made and sealed, there were six lines on Elliot's pallid chest, beneath the dip where her ribcage ended. There was also a dark blue ring around her throat, darker in certain parts as the bruising pattern mimicked that of the weave of a thick length of rope. "Elliot was stabbed six times, all in the lower abdomen in non-fatal areas. Judging by the image of the bloodstain, I've come to the conclusion that they left her to bleed there for a few minutes before they wrapped a noose around her neck and dropped her. Someone probably held her up before letting her go. Whatever they did, they either did it enough to snap the neck or they got it just right the first time. Had her neck not broken she would have died of asphyxiation. Feel free to examine them to any extent that you need."

Levi nodded and held out his hands. Zoe slapped a pair of gloves into his hands, an action that must have been so familiar to the two of them by now that words, even actions, probably weren't necessary. She held another pair out for Eren and he gratefully took them from her. After wriggling his fingers into the latex confines he took his position on one side of Smith's body and slowly heaved the man upwards. His back was a mass of red cuts, some close, some overlapping each other. There was no pattern to the wounds, just what appeared to have been the product of mindlessly slamming a blade downwards, again and again, until the person lay dead beneath them.

Smith's neck was visible, the hair too short to fall much further than the end of his hairline. His neck was void of any markings, including the thin line that Masters had borne. Levi and Eren eased the body back down and moved over to Elliot's body to repeat the process. Eren pulled her dark red hair away, revealing a neck barren of marks or scars. They set her body back down and Hanji twitched the sheets back into place as Levi ripped off his gloves and grabbed the medical charts, first Elliot's and then Smith's. Eren pulled his own gloves off a little slower and threw them in the trash before he edged over to wait for Levi to finish with the charts.

"This makes no sense!" Levi snarled, his hands clenching on the edge of the clipboards, his face twisting into an agitated scowl. "There's no connection to the kidnappings aside from that damn slash!" Levi shoved the clipboards into Eren's chest and whirled around, his normally quiet and graceful movements were jerky with agitation. Eren could hear Levi muttering quietly to himself as he glanced over the clipboards Levi had shoved in his direction. The linking factors thus far, the age and blood type of all of the current victims, were nonexistent with this new development in the case. Smith was thirty-seven years old and his blood type was A-. Elliot was twenty-nine and B+. It just didn't add up.

_Why would they suddenly change? Why start killing civilians? What's their end goal?_

**Chapter 11: End**

* * *

Is it bad if I feel more comfortable writing murder scenes than smut scenes? I'm not quite sure... But yeah, I've had this last half of the story planned out since before I started writing it. Hahaha. I'll keep this short because I have damn Alg2 to study -_-

**TheOtaku2: **While I won't apologize for writing her like that, nor will I bash you for believing that, I simply ask you to remember _why_ she's acting like that. Sure, she might be a little more overprotective than usual, but wouldn't you be too if you had watched your family, both biological and surrogate, die or leave, and then nearly lose your brother? But hey, it's your opinion~ :)  
**calleyrose:** XD Thank you last minute ideas~ And murder always spices things up a bit~  
**ichiruzuka:** And I hope you do, good or bad XD

**layer14:** I am planning _so _much. But I won't say anything for now. And there's a relationship... I'm just getting some much-needed help with parts of it. It'll definitely be pushed up a bit in a few chapters. I won't give an exact number though because I have no idea as to when exactly.  
**blackirishawk:** XD Understandably since those were just something you thought would be there one minute, gone the next.  
**Guest/Soul:** Don't worry, I try to update on even numbered days. Don't ask why even numbered ones. As for the kidnapping - I'd love to tell you... but that would ruin any surprises I have planned for you guys~


	12. The Garden of Death

**END GAME**

**Chapter 12: The Garden of Death**

**This chapter contains gore, death, and various other dark and violent themes. Proceed with caution.**

* * *

The acrid tang of smoke filled the frigid and gray pre-dawn air over the Chlorba District, hanging thick despite the persistent wind that sent the thick white clouds high above hurtling across the sky. A thick column of smoke still billowed upwards from the scorched shell of a warehouse, one where several emergency response vehicles had been stored. It had started burning in the early hours of the morning, around three o'clock. By the clock on Levi's watch, it was now nearly seven o'clock.

The firefighters were still spraying down the seared and still smoldering walls and interior of the building. The flames had burned so hot in some places that it had produced deposits of slag from where the brick and metal walls had begun to melt under the fury of the confined flames. They had managed to keep the fire contained to the single warehouse due to swift response, but a sudden wind change always brought the chance of carrying those few remaining live sparks to another building, one which would burn quicker and be more likely to spread the fire.

Levi leaned against a patrol car and watched as the firefighters finally began to slow the stream of water until no more came out. They began to wrap up the thick hoses as the last of the water splashed onto the ground outside of the warehouse. Part of the warehouse roof collapsed inwards, the screech of tin roofing and metal girders filling the air before there was a small ground-trembling shudder as it hit the warehouse floor. He would have to wait until the place was stable before anyone was allowed to go in and search the place for the three to six bodies he was already expecting within, buried beneath a thick layer of damp, lumpy ash and steaming metal, still hot to the touch.

A patch of yellow moved in his peripheral and Levi turned his head, watching as Irvin approached him. "As far as we know, no workers were in the warehouse when the fire started. The fire chief is thinking that vandals started the fire. I'm assuming that you have another idea, after all, this isn't something you typically come out for." Levi shrugged and ran his nail across the metal lighter in his pocket. "It seemed like something that would involve our case… Besides, it's not like I was asleep." White vapor ghosted from his lips, rising up into the soft gray light of dawn. "That is a strange case you're working, isn't it?" Irvin said, glancing over at the smaller man.

Levi gazed forwards, his eyes firmly fixed upon the burned shell of a building, his eyes grim and his mouth set into a thin line. "Irvin, something is happening. Something big is coming and I'm not sure what it all means."

* * *

By that afternoon two things had occurred; four small skeletons, charred and nearly unidentifiable, were pulled from the wreckage of the warehouse once it had been stabilized. The other thing was that two more children had gone missing during the night, both from the Chlorba District, by the names of Damien Twist and Karen Ramirez. The four skeletons that had been found were in the process of being identified. Dental records were necessary due to the distinct lack of DNA, but they had managed to locate all four skulls, all of them within feet of each other.

It was Friday, October the 11th, two days since the murders of David Smith and Eliza Elliot. There were no new clues, no new leads, nothing that could point them in the right direction. Whoever was behind this entire scheme was making sure that no traces other than the intentional ones were left behind. They were back to a standstill, trapped behind the barrier that came from the lack of knowledge. The case had gone from confusing to downright insane. Levi and Eren had gone over the note, the article and the Masters' document thousands of times, again and again and again until they were at the point of breaking from frustration.

The neighbors had all been interviewed and had all turned in with rock-solid alibis for the approximated times of death. Not only that, but the cameras in the halls had been tampered with; the new batteries had been replaced with dead ones, about twelve hours before the murders had occurred. There had been a slight power outage along that block at that time; when the lights came back on, the cameras did not.

As the days dragged on, smoke breaks for Levi became a thing more or less of the past, instead leading to both of them reaching for the coffee and various other caffeine-laced drinks whenever the need for a cigarette or to lapse into sleep arose. Levi had called Ilse numerous times, only to reach the woman's voicemail time after time again. Either she had no new leads for him or she was trapped in her lab living off of frozen meals while she dissected various things and experimented on others.

By five o'clock Saturday afternoon Eren was ready to scream and tear his hair out from frustration and despair. He couldn't tell whether those feelings had started to come when the case had started or whether they were simply overlaying the ones that were already there. It was hard to differentiate the moods now, especially when he spent so much time stressing over trying to find a clue, a hint, _anything_ that could save these people, these children. The circle that they kept running in was infinite, stretching on with no end in sight. The document that he had found days earlier was one of the only glimmers of hope that they had, one of the others being the remaining files that were still coded, protected by numerous firewalls and an eternity code.

His computer was constantly on now, running through thousands upon thousands of passwords every hour on the hour, inserting every combination and string of words possible. Eren couldn't be sure how long it would take; hypothetically an eternity, hence the name. However, an eternity was not the amount of time they had. They had days, hours even, until the mysterious group could strike again, stealing away more children during the night, leaving people dead in their homes, and burning down buildings to dispose of the bodies once they were done with them, leaving behind no evidence of what they had done before the child's death.

Eren glanced up at the board that Levi had set up beside his desk, propped up on an easel-like structure. Blue thumbtacks represented the children that had been taken, green for where the bodies had been found, and red for the double murder. They were scattered all across the map of Eden, some close together and some far away. When it came down to examining the location of the victims there was absolutely no connection that Eren could see. Eren kneaded his pounding head with fingers stiff from going back and forth between flipping through papers and smashing, albeit gently, at his laptop.

He glanced up at the clock; 5:15. Mikasa and Armin would be at his apartment in about half an hour. Eren sighed and saved the documents before he closed them one by one, leaving the Breaker program open as he put the computer into sleep mode. "Levi, I'm heading back to my apartment." The other man didn't even glance up at Eren's words, too absorbed in examining the note and marking spots on the map where the next attack could possibly be. Eren almost felt jealous of the damn map which was foolish considering it was an inanimate object.

Eren sighed and slid the silent but still-warm laptop into his bag, flicking the flap into place before pulling it over his head. He spared one last glance at Levi, who was still focused intently on the map, before he pulled his eyes away and left, each step as heavy as sinking heart.

* * *

Mikasa and Armin knocked at his door ten minutes after Eren had returned to his apartment, Armin bearing a box of pizza and Mikasa clutching a brown paper bag and a book, the latter of which she handed to Eren when she entered. The cover was dark maroon, closer to black even, with the face of a woman, a lighter shade of red, with the title made of smoke-like characters; _Doctor Sleep_ by Stephan King.

"That's the sequel to _The Shining,_" Mikasa said as she pulled the small handful of white carnations from the paper bag. The withered carnations in the small green vase on the coffee table were taken out and replaced by the fresh ones before Mikasa dropped the older ones into the bag, sweeping the stray petals that had attempted to escape back into the bag.

The three friends crunched themselves onto the couch, invading each other's personal space with every other movement, resulting in an elbow to a ribcage here and a knee to the hip there. An episode of _Doctor Who_ played, episode six of the 2005 series. "Do you have any new leads Eren?" Mikasa looked at him, an eyebrow raised as she waited for him to swallow so he could answer her question.

"There's been nothing new since I told you last," Eren said, "We're pretty much stuck right now with no hope of figuring this case out before some other kid gets taken or someone else is killed." Mikasa set her hand on Eren's shoulder, warm and gentle. He let it sit there for a few moments before it shrugged it off.

"You'll find something soon," Mikasa said, her voice soft, "I'm sure of it." Armin nodded in agreement on the other side of Eren. "Nobody is perfect and these guys sure aren't. They'll slip up soon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they'll mess up. It's human nature to do so. All you need is a single fingerprint or a drop of blood and you'll have them. You've just got to be patient. Don't lose hope yet." Eren glanced at his friends, both of whom offered smiles of encouragement. Eren smiled back at them, warmed by their solid belief in him and his success. "Thanks you two," he murmured after a moment. "I'm sure we'll get these guys soon."

* * *

Lights flashed red, blue, red, and blue, flickering off the stone brick and glass walls of the Trost Botanical Gardens. Several police officers milled around; Mike Zacharius and Nanaba Suzuki from their station along with several other officers from two of the police stations in Trost. They were calling out to each other, flashlight beams sweeping the ground as they searched the perimeter of the building for any hints of their murderers. A small, heavy-set man with thinning gray hair and small blue eyes behind circular glasses sat huddled on the pavement, wrapped up in a threadbare gray and scratchy wool blanket. He stared down at the ground, his eyes blank with horror.

Levi crouched down next to the man and put a hand on his shoulder. The man jumped beneath the touch and slowly inched his head up till he could look Levi in the eye. "Sir, what is your name?" The man shuddered and pulled the blanket closer around him, his eyes slowly focusing on Levi. "J-James Mitchell…"

"Can you tell me what happened?"

The man hesitated for a few moments before he swallowed nervously and nodded. "I… I came in to unlock the greenhouse, just like I do every morning. The doors were already unlocked though. I wasn't sure if Ernie had gotten here before me, he sometimes does that. I went in and… and there was this dark puddle on the floor. I wasn't sure what it was… Sometimes the pipes leak and it was still dark. I walked around for a few minutes, looking for Ernie, before I checked the tropical greenhouse and I… I saw them. Both of them, just lying there, dead." The man clutched his head, shaking like a brittle leaf in a gale, as he rocked slightly.

Levi hesitated before he gave the man an awkward pat on the shoulder and rose, motioning for one of the paramedics to come over. Levi set off, his feet quiet on the cold pavement, white steam flowing from his lips, as he pulled the door open, leaving Eren to slip through into the gardens behind him.

The floor was made up of pieces of light-colored stone that had been cemented together, giving it a cobbled look, much like how roads looked centuries ago before tarmac and asphalt had been created. Plants covered every surface, ranging from patches of earth actually set into the floor to metal wire shelves several rows high to baskets of vines and drooping plants that hung from the ceiling. Small fountains dotted the place, some twisted with vines, others void of plants. Several greenhouses were built into the building itself, set off to the right of the main entryway.

The pool of blood was twenty feet from the entryway There was too much blood for one person to possibly spill by themselves and there were two sets of marks, smears of blood leading away to the right, towards the greenhouses. Levi headed straight for the greenhouse, walking alongside the smeared trail of blood. The door to the greenhouse had been left open but no humid air was spilling out. The temperature and humidity controls in the greenhouse had been turned off as soon as the police had arrived on scene. An officer from the Trost District was standing at the door, his gun clutched in his hands. He stared straight ahead, unlinking and unmoving.

Levi pulled two pairs of gloves from his pockets, tossing the larger of the two at Eren before he slipped his own on. The two victims were had been dropped just inside of the doorway, their limbs askew and the cobbled stone beneath them was red with the watery blood. The sprinklers had gone off before the police had arrived, washing the blood off of the two women and leaving it to mix and dilute with the thin coating of water on the floor that slowly trickled towards the drainage slits. Nanaba was waiting inside for them, a notepad clutched in one hand while the other rested on the butt of his pistol. "Who do we have now?"

"The victims' names are Anna and Jamie Harper, sisters twenty-five and twenty-two years old respectively." He gestured towards each of the girls in turn, Anna being the one to the right of the door and Jamie the one to the left. We have already contacted their bosses. Both were at their respective jobs last night. We will have more information on them within a few hours." Nanaba flipped the notebook shut and edged a little further out of the way, pressed against a potted palm bush as Levi moved in closer to inspect the bodies.

Jamie lay on her back, her wide brown eyes staring up sightlessly at the ceiling. Her skin was too pale and her face had a bluish cast to it, like someone who had been starved of oxygen. Her light blue t-shirt was more of a dark red now, black under the faint lights. Her shirt had been slashed, revealing a pale abdomen covered in stab wounds, mostly concentrated around the lower half of her torso. A thick black cord was lying across her neck, the angry red indents from where it had dug into her neck still visible. A wooden baseball bat lay a few feet from her left hand, splotched with blood.

Levi cast his gaze to Anna, who was lying on her side, her limbs mottled purple and blue with bruises and jutting out at odd angles. Her left forearm had snapped, leaving a piece of bone pressing up into the skin, a rigid bump under pale flesh. There were finger-shaped marks around her throat, red and dark as the remaining blood settled into the places of injury. Her face was swollen, the left side a mask of bruises and cuts that rose up an inch further than the other side. A spot on the side of her head was coated with blood and water, plastering the blonde hair to her head. A gash was visible beneath the clumps of blood drying in her hair. She had been hit in the head, at least once, and numerous other times across the rest of her body. Hanji would be required to see the full extent of the damage, although the blow to her head was probably had had killed her.

There was something sticking out from Anna's right hand, the corner of a plastic baggie clenched between pale, rigid fingers. Levi shifted forwards in his crouch and slowly pried her fingers apart. They were thankfully loose, the humidity from the tropical greenhouse keep the stages of rigor mortis at bay for a while longer. Someone had put a small and clear waterproof bag into her hand, a small slip of yellow paper inside. Levi tugged it open, removed the paper, and pulled it out of its crisp folds. The note was typed, the black font screaming out at him.

_Paradise is gone now, here is the cost;  
Pieces will be taken, lives will be lost.  
Midnight brings the flight of the crows  
Tick, tock, the gears won't stop till the shops close._

There was another red slash beneath the text, taunting him with its mysteries. Levi fought the urge to clench the note in his hand and instead folded and slid it back into the bag before he sealed it and dropped it in his pocket. A scraping sound brought his eyes up. Eren held the bat gingerly between two gloved fingers that clutched the knob. Eren glanced up at Levi and turned the bat around. A 'C' had been carved into it, a straight cut under the bottom of it. They were being left a message, spelled out on the objects left at the scenes. _Just what are they getting at? What the hell could the message be?_

* * *

Zoe pulled the sheets away from the victim's bodies and began to read off of their charts, Anna's first and then Jamie's. "Anna Harper, she was bludgeoned to death. The marks on the right side of her head match up to that of the barrel of the bat. She was struck three times in the side of the head, numerous times on the rest of her body, and most likely someone had kicked or hit her in the face with their hands and feet. The blows to the head are the cause of death. The second one is the blow that actually killed her as it fractured her skull and sent several shards of the bone into her brain. One of her arms was fractured along with several ribs, not to mention the damage to her internal organs."

Zoe moved onto Jamie, picking up her chart from the metal bin. "Jamie was stabbed seven times in the lower torso, all in non-vital areas. She would have bled out over the course of an hour or two, possibly more depending on how much she moved. The cord around her neck was used to strangle her, probably while she was still living, judging from the marks on her neck and jaw from where she presumably tried to pull it away if she was conscious at the time. Strangulation is her cause of death."

She stepped back to let them search the bodies. Levi and Eren pulled Anna Harper's body into an upright position, shifting aside the thick blonde hair so that they could peer at her neck. It was void of scars, just like Elliot's and Smith's had been. It was the same case with Jamie's neck. Their cases were similar; they were too old to fit the pattern that the perpetrators had set, they had no marks like Masters had borne, and their blood types were not AB-. The only thing that continued to link all of the victims was the red slash, its meaning eluding them no matter what they tried.

"Levi, I received word from the coroners holding the found skeletons. They've ID's the bodies. I've printed off the information already, a copy for each of you." Zoe tugged the sheets back into place before she darted into her office, emerging moments later clutching two sets of paper, each bound together by paperclips. "You can look over those later when you get back to the station," Zoe said as she shoved them into their hands. "In the meantime I have another case to handle, so unless you want to stick around for a class of Autopsy 101, I advise you vamoose."

Eren looked at the woman, who had a grim set to her mouth but an excited sparkle in her eyes. _She is so weird sometimes._ Eren jerked backwards as a hand yanked on his sleeve, pulling him out of the morgue. "Come on you idiot," Levi muttered as he pulled him along, the back of his head facing Eren, preventing him from seeing the flush that raged across the man's face. "That is a special kind of torture. It should be reserved for one of the rings of Hell or something like that." When they burst through the doors to the cold gray world outside Levi dropped his hand from Eren's sleeve, using the hand to light a cigarette instead, which he smoked as they made their way back to the station.

Levi stopped outside of the station to light another cigarette. Eren hesitated beside of him, unsure of whether to continue inside or to wait on the other man. "Go on in," Levi said, waving his hand and sending the scent of lemongrass in Eren's direction. "Start getting a list of all of the victims together or something. I'll come in and fix the map in a few minutes." "Sure. I'll see if someone has left any information on the Harper's on your desk and go through it if they have." Levi jerked his head in response and Eren pushed his way inside, the warmth enveloping him. He dropped his jacket on the coatrack by the door and dodged his way past several officers before he threw the packet of papers onto the desk. He pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from one of the metal desk drawers and set to putting the list together. It was a little disheartening to put the list together, especially when he looked at the ages of the children who had either died or gone missing, never to be seen again.

**Alice Benedict (9) – **deceased

**Diego Santiago (7) – **deceased

**Jenny Tripp (4) –** deceased

**Samuel Weiss (6) –** deceased

**Lilly Murray (2) –** deceased

**Kenny Snyder (5) –** deceased

**Antonio Gonzalez (10) –** whereabouts unknown

**Lucia Long (7) –** deceased

**Joshua Green (3) –** deceased

**Camilla Edwards (3) –** whereabouts unknown

**Bruce Springs (4) –** deceased

**Molly Whitney (8) –** deceased

**Damien Twist (4) –** whereabouts unknown

**Karen Ramirez (6) –** whereabouts unknown

**Eliza Elliot (29) – **deceased

**Daniel Smith (37) –** deceased

**Anna Harper (25) –** deceased

**Jamie Harper (22) –** deceased

The questions still remained for the latter half of the list; why would they pick these people? Why would they suddenly change their pattern, what little pattern that they had? Why would they start leaving notes at the scenes of murders but not at kidnappings, where they could obtain ransoms? Eren glanced up; Levi stood in front of the board, staring intently at the map. "What about where the murdered victims lived leading up to their deaths?"

Levi glanced over at Eren, an eyebrow questioningly raised before a look of approval momentarily crossed his face. Eren could almost swear he had just seen a small smile tugging at the corners of Levi's lips before the other man walked away. Levi returned a minute or two later, a box of colored thumbtacks clutched in his hand. Eren watched as Levi shook the tacks out onto the desk, sorting through them till he found three yellow ones. Eren took that as his cue to call out the three addresses. The latest idea had given them nothing yet, but ideas were something.

At this point every single inch that they gained was a precious commodity, scarce and in high demand. Eren sighed as he looked back at the sheets of information, looking for _anything_ that could help them. _Nothing… there's nothing… these people are dying and we can't do anything to stop it. We need something, anything._

**Chapter 12: End**

* * *

Sorry it's a bit late, but I'd rather be passing Algebra than uploading. Haha, anyways, here is chapter 12 for all of you darlings. It's late so I'll keep this short. Also, I apologize for those who read the last chapter before I was reminded about a gore warning... I feel really bad about that. Also many thanks to **calleyrose**, a wonderful person who helped me rewrite the smut for chapter 9~

**calleyrose:** I am so, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry about forgetting that. I forget a lot of stuff. And you're letting a 2 year old read this...? Just making sure I read that right lol.  
**ichiruzuka:** Understandably. The change is meant to be confusing, you know, how people will double back to try and throw people off their trail. It's kind of like that, but not. Don't worry, everything will start coming to light soon.


	13. Narrowing the Search

**END GAME**

**Chapter 13: Narrowing the Search**

**This chapter contains various themes including: Gore, violence, murder, lots of blood, etc. This is your forewarning.**

* * *

A man crouched down inside of the shop, the sharp scent of blood filling his nose, a familiar and welcome scent. He pulled the note from his pocket and a thumbtack from the other one. All that was needed was a quick jab through the paper and plaster and then his job was done. The man stood, nudging the body to his right with the toe of his foot. _Those morons... they'll never figure it out. They need all the help they can get._

Of course, the Lord had given him very specific instructions to be careful, to leave no evidence behind, even if it meant burning the place down behind him. The Lord would punish them if those persistent detectives picked up on anything before the plan could fully unfold. Perfect execution was a must, especially if they hoped to complete the plan. The man shouldered the shop's door open, wary of the blood coating his gloves. He would have to burn those later. It was a nuisance, but it was a necessary precaution.

He tugged the glove from his right hand, slipping it into his pocket to extract several quarters. Dawn would be rising soon. He needed to complete the last step and return before the sun fully rose. It would be a bit suspicious to walk around in broad daylight with blood on him. He stopped at a phone booth and tucked the wire phone between his ear and shoulder before he slid the quarters in, one by one, and pressed the buttons; 9-1-1. The person on the other line picked up on the second ring. "This is 9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"T-there's been a murder." It was a struggle to keep in the character of a terrified citizen, to refrain from letting the malicious smirk pull his lips up, which would bring a harsh, sadistic laugh bubbling to his lips once the façade broke. Because he knew, oh he knew, he knew, he _knew_ that it would be an urge too sweet to hold back once it got started. That would be a dead giveaway in the fact that he was anything but an innocent citizen. If they realized that he was anything but a terrified person calling from a public phone they would go through the video cameras on the streets. What a nuisance. The days when there weren't cameras on every street corner were long gone, a mere memory that he wished was still a reality. Maybe then these jobs would be easier, especially with the police increasing the amount of patrols. "Can you give me your location?"

The man let a small smirk tug his lips up, his blue eyes glittering maliciously. He swept a gloved hand through his hair, smearing blood through his blonde hair. "Yes…"

* * *

Levi and Eren stood outside of Crowley's Clock Shop, located on Jade Street in the Karanese District. People walked around the perimeter of the blockade, talking anxiously even though day had yet to fully break. Reporters were already on scene, clamoring for attention, for an interview with one of the officers, who were unresponsive towards their questions other than orders for the more exuberant ones to stay behind the tape and hurdles.

"Sir, tell me, what exactly did you see inside of the clock shop?"  
"Sir, do you have reasons to believe that this murder is connected to the recent murders of Eliza Elliot and David Smith?"  
"Sir could you-"  
"Madame would you-"  
"Detective, I have some question-"  
"Officer, what is your take-"  
"Could you tell us-"  
"Sir-"  
"Officer-"  
"I have some questions-"  
"If you could spare-"  
"Please, just one quest-"  
"Thirty seconds, that's all I-"  
"-a statement for the press-"  
"Do you think-"  
"We just have a few-"  
"The public needs to know-"  
"You over there, yes you! Could you-"

They wouldn't stop the endless flow of questions. It was testing Levi's patience; he could already feel his eye beginning to twitch and he hadn't even set foot inside of the shop yet. The day was already going downhill and he had only been awake for an hour and a half at most. It was amazing how the moronic citizens of Eden could infuriate him so easily.

Levi kept his head down and ignored the questions that flew through the air as he took the offered notepad from one of the officers, taking a few moments to look over the information on it before he entered the shop, Eren on his heels. _Our victims are_ _Alexander Johnson and Black Cornish, who were twenty-five and twenty-seven respectively. They were coworkers at the Herald of Eden. God that is such a pathetic newspaper; I'm amazed anyone buys a pathetic rag with such horrendous quality._ Levi pulled the glass and metal door open, a bell jangling irritatingly as he jerked the door open. It only added to the headache that was starting to build in his temples, steadily growing as the day slowly inched onwards.

The stench of blood was thick, pressing against his senses like a thick cloth that smelled metallic, of copper. He could almost have tolerated it though, due to the blissful silence and darkness of the shop, opposed to the cacophony of the street outside. Well, silent except for the tick of clocks and the chimes that seemed to come every few moments from one of the hundreds of clocks littering the shop. They ranged from pocket watches to cuckoo clocks, grandfather clocks to digital clocks.

Levi pressed his fingertips to his forehead as he pulled the gloves from his pocket with his other hand, passing one pair to Eren. _I really should just give him the damn gloves to keep._ Levi let his eyes sweep over the scene for a quick moment before he selected which body to start with. The first man, who was propped up against the wall directly in front of the door, was apparently supposed to be Alexander Johnson, based off of the notes that he had been given. The other man, Blake Cornish, was lying, limbs all askew, in front of a large mahogany grandfather clock.

The brown tiled floor was coated with a layer of glass and blood, several broken clocks scattered about, and their gears spilling onto the ground. Levi picked his way across the shop till he could crouch beside of Johnson's body. His eyes were shut, the long brown-blonde hair that had escaped from his ponytail concealing part of his blood-smeared face. The bloodstain, still fresh, originated from the right side of his chest, where a screwdriver was firmly embedded into his chest, all the way up to the handle. The yellow handle had smears of blood on it, but they couldn't hide the thing that had been etched into the side, an 'R.' Another letter on another weapon. _What the hell are they trying to tell us?_ Levi tugged the shirt till it was taut, checking for any more holes or gashes in his shirt. Aside from the screwdriver impaled into his chest Johnson appeared to have no other wounds.

Levi stood and moved over to Cornish, glass shards crunching beneath his feet and gears skittering across the floor when Eren accidentally dragged his feet. He crouched beside Cornish and his eyes swept across the man's body. There was a long, jagged gash going across his throat, just above the base. Blood still flowed from the gaping wound, trickling down his blood-stained neck and shirt and dripping down to the floor below. There were several other stab wounds dotting his body. Several fingers were missing, his ring and pinky from his right hand and his thumb and forefinger from his left, leaving only blood-crusted stumps of varying lengths on his hands.

A square of yellow beside of Cornish's shoulder caught Levi's eye. The note had been folded and taped up onto the wooden wall. The same note that would give them an abstract clue as to where the next murders would occur. Levi reached up to pull it away but another hand beat him to it. He glanced up at Eren, watching the other boy as he unfolded and read from the yellow scrap of paper, the black typed letters somewhat visible through the paper.

_"The time begins, the plan unfolds  
See now what your future holds  
Three warnings have come, three warnings have gone  
The Titans will rise, our age is about to dawn  
Do you hear now, the people's sound?  
Above the street, the Stars wait to be found."_

Levi raised an eyebrow and Eren looked down at him with a shrug. "These people are enigmas wrapped in puzzles wrapped in riddles. There's just no damn end to the layers of shit they've wrapped themselves in."

Eren folded the note back into its original form, folding the tape over on the paper so it wouldn't stick as he slid it into his pocket. "They're inconsistent for the most part. Although, the last two murders occurred Saturday night or Sunday morning and Wednesday morning respectively. Today is Wednesday. Assuming that this is a pattern, they'll be planning to strike sometime Saturday night." Levi's eyes darted back up to Eren and he watched the other man for a moment before he let a small smirk pull up the corner of his lips, slight but evident. "I see you're finally picking up on something."

Levi rose and began to tug the gloves off of his hands. "That is an assumption that we'll have to make. Until then, we need to analyze this note, and the others for good measure."

* * *

Levi set the three notes out, side by side by side in order of when they had been acquired. Three scraps of bright yellow paper left behind, three cryptic poem-like messages left to decipher. They stared at the notes, pictures, and pages of information for a while. Papers were passed back and forth, comments exchanged – a mixture of caustic and calm – and thoughts were exchanged. They had come to call the group the Titans, after the fourth line in the note. "Levi, can I see the notes?" Eren inquired, holding his hand out in the general direction of Levi, his head turned towards the board the map was pinned to, along with at least a dozen other photos from the assorted crime scenes. Levi slid the note over and Eren looked down at it.

Eren pointed to the last two lines of the first one, the bottom of his black long-sleeved shirt pushing it forwards along the desk a bit. "In the last line it said _'Bring your best to the garden.'_ It didn't specify what garden, but it still said 'garden.' Then the Harper girls were found in the Trost Botanical Gardens. In the end of their poem, it said _'Tick tock, the gears won't stop till the shops close.'_ Tick tock is a sound associated with clocks most of the time, while gears could be something mechanical oriented. But the fact that it says both 'shops' and then 'crows' in the third line kind of points us in the general direction of where the next murders occurred – Crowley's Clock Shop. Crowley has the word 'crow' in it. Maybe that's the purpose of the last two lines, giving us clues to where the next bodies will be found."

Levi's eyes widened and his hand shot across the desk, plucking the last note from the cool wooden surface. "If that theory is true, and I'm pretty sure it is, then I think we've got a general idea of where the next attack will occur. If it's just the last two lines, we're left with _'Do you hear now, the people's sound? Upon the street, the Stars wait to be found.'_ The problem is that there are several broad and small areas could be taken from those two lines alone."

Eren nodded in agreement and moved over to the map, prodding parts of it with his finger. "If we take the noise-related elements from the first of those two lines, we end up with several places, ranging from the Coliseum that the Orchestra of Eden plays in at least once a month to the entirety of the Yalkell District since they produce massive quantities of musical instruments annually."

Levi opened one of his desk drawers and grabbed a red marker and tossed it to Eren. The green-eyed man thankfully managed to catch it before it nailed him straight in the forehead… or in the eye. "Circle those areas," Levi commanded and he pulled two other markers out, a green and blue. "I never thought I would actually need these damn things," he muttered and he watched Eren, waiting for the other man to finish outlining the two areas. Eren turned back to Levi and they traded markers, the red for the green. "If you look at the latter of the lines, the Titans stated 'street,' which could be interpreted as either a literal street, a shop, or an underground name for something. If it's the first of those three things, that narrows down the roads since it specifies street instead of avenue, road, lane, and such."

Eren turned back to the map and scanned the map for a few minutes, highlighting certain roads and circling certain smaller areas green. "Then they also state 'Stars.' The odd part about that is that it's been capitalized. It could be the name of a street, a business, or it could even be code for something."

"Isn't there a street in Yalkell called Sun Street? The sun is a star – that could be a place it could be on." They traded markers once more, the green for the blue this time. Eren located and highlighted the street, talking as he did so. "We'll need to get a detailed map of Yalkell, but this is a good start. It's narrowing down the places we'll need to look. If we can narrow it down any further, we might be able to post officers along various points of the place."

Levi leaned back, a feeling of satisfaction blooming in his chest. For once they finally had a chance of being ahead of these 'Titans,' as they had dubbed themselves. Of course, they had no clue as for when or where the next kidnapping(s) would occur, but since Damien Twist and Karen Ramirez had gone missing five days ago, no bodies had been found, nor had any more children gone missing. However there was still the problem of the first four lines of the poem. The warm sense of satisfaction quickly turned to icy tendrils of dread at that. _What plan? What were those murders warnings for?_

Levi glanced up at Eren, who scratched idly at his arm as he stared at the board. The arm which was currently bandaged, which had been previously hidden by his long sleeves. He made no comment on it, but a thought did strike him then. _I thought he healed quickly… so why would he need bandages in the first place?_

* * *

By the 18th of October, a Friday night, Eren and Levi had managed to narrow the possible places down to three streets, all within the Yalkell District. The roads were Sun Street, Treble Street, and Starfall Street. All three contained things related to the clues in the notes, ranging from places to acquire hearing aids to places to buy music to places to buy lights and star-related objects.

That, however, had not prevented two charred bodies from turning up and two more children from disappearing. The bodies of Damien Twist and Karen Ramirez had been found earlier that morning, the ashes and bones smoldering inside of a large green Dumpster. The two other children that had gone missing, Erin Redford and Lukas Miller, had been reported missing nearly an hour after the burning Dumpster had been found.

Levi and Eren began to plan out patrols for the three streets for the following night. They could spare five officers from their own station and the Yalkell District was willing to provide ten to fifteen more for that night and morning. That might give them the chance of deterring the occurrence of the next murder.

A curfew would be set for all of Eden, but Yalkell would be set for an hour earlier, requiring all residents to be indoors by seven o'clock PM at the risk of being arrested. Some might have deemed it unnecessary, but it was a precaution that they had to take. Perhaps that would prevent the amount of people being falsely accused as the murderers, or even being shot on accident. The latter of the two was thankfully a worst-case scenario if anyone was still outside past the curfew.

Eren was in the process of panicking, worried that his assumptions were completely off, that he was wrong. As the night wore on Levi slowly but surely found it harder to refrain from smacking the other man, but he managed to do so, instead straining to focus on the papers in front of him. He was about to break out the duct tape when Eren stood and pulled his bag over his shoulder. "I've got to go now. I've got a shift at the bookstore. Let me know if you figure anything else out."

Eren gave Levi no time to respond, instead whipping around and darting out of the station. Levi could almost have sworn that the man's face was bright red, but the split second glance he had taken was not enough to be able to completely tell if that was true.

Levi clucked his tongue and leaned back, propping the bottom of his foot up against the edge of his desk. _He's an idiot alright… It's amazing he's managed to get this far in life._ Levi glanced up. It was already darkening outside and the few people on the streets were darting into their apartments, locking the doors and most likely even the windows behind them. _Perhaps I should have offered to walk him there or something. It would really be a drag if he got killed now, especially when we might have finally found something to give up a break in this damnable case._

It was strange how he found his thoughts wandering down that path. It was strange how his thoughts seemed to be going down paths concerning Eren more often than they originally had. _It's just because we're on a case,_ Levi rationalized. _I'd think the same thing if I was working with Petra or someone else… wouldn't I?_

* * *

A woman knelt in the dark antechamber, her forehead, palms, and knees pressed into the cool, damp stones. Two small children were crouched in kowtow-like bows, one on either side of her. The girl on her right was sniffling quietly, the sounds filled with pain and fear. The boy on her left was crouching quietly, his gaze fixed firmly on the ground. "How long did each child last?" The voice echoed off of the curved stone walls and pillars that filled the dimly lit place, bouncing around before they died away.

The rustle of paper reached the woman's ears as she knelt on the ground, waiting for the moment when she and the children could rise. "The boy lasted twelve hours before the regeneration abilities came to a stop. The girl lasted three and a half hours before her regeneration abilities ceased to function."

The second voice was soft, timid, and masculine. It was deceptive, especially considering the fact that J was an assassin. It wasn't the kind of voice most would expect for an assassin, but then again, he was surprisingly delicate-looking for one too, so he didn't fit the bill appearance-wise. Despite that, he could still lodge a knife in the center of a person's forehead from fifty or so paces away. "The boy is coming along nicely… the girl could use some improvement, but I we still have time to develop her regeneration capabilities," J continued.

The man who had spoken first, their Lord, hummed quietly in response. "Their progress has been good thus far," he mused. "How are the two newest subjects faring?"

"Decently," J murmured. The woman could imagine him standing by the throne, his head bowed and eyes fixed on the ground in his deceptively timid manner. "The boy started to decline about twenty minutes ago, but the girl's blood pressure and heart rate are stable for the moment."

"Good…" the Lord murmured. "You three… you may rise." The woman rose, her stiff knees screaming in protest as she straightened them. She helped the children rise on trembling legs, gripping their hands firmly but in a comforting way. _The worst is almost over children…_ she thought quietly to herself. _Soon you won't have to be in pain anymore._ The woman looked up at her Lord, her gaze steady and blank. "You must draw the Subject closer," the Lord said. "The end is coming. He must be prepared."

The woman nodded and waited for the Lord to dismiss them. He flicked his hand and the woman bowed once more, pulling the children down with her before she backed out of the room, her eyes fixed on the man, an exit that had been drilled into her since before she could remember, back when M was still in charge. The doors closed when they left and the woman led the children back to their room. She waited till they were both asleep before she slipped out of the room and went to go watch the two new children they had taken.

**Chapter 13: End**

* * *

Good morning darlings~ Hahaha I'm so glad I don't have school tomorrow... today... whatever. Aaaaanyways, I should probably go ahead and name this chapter and get started on some various things.

**calleyrose:** Hahaha who knows? And good, the suspense should be killing you. Slowly. Literally. Just kidding. Oh my gods, a 2 yr old... I hope you're censoring some of this. Hahaha, no, no I didn't.  
**layer14:** I almost feel like I have them on a hamster wheel to be honest.  
**ichiruzuka:** Bingo~  
**TheOtaku2:** Hahaha, I've been planning this since like, early September, and the plot can be confusing, even to me, and I'm writing the damn thing. But that's cause I'm trying to make everything connect without it being too weird and it's irritating sometimes. But I do hope this confusion starts to clear up soon.


	14. Critical Error

**END GAME**

**Chapter 14: Critical Error**

* * *

Eren sat the green coffee mug down on the coffee table with a soft clack, steam rising over the rim from the light-brown liquid within. He dropped backwards onto the couch, thankful that he didn't miss it. It had happened once before when he had misjudged the distance. Armin had brought that up for months afterwards whenever he could. Eren tapped one of the keys on his laptop and leaned back for a few moments, his gaze fixed firmly on the ceiling. The laptop began to hum and buzz quietly as it started up.

His mind began to drift around as he waited for it to completely start up. _Mikasa's almost done with her new case… What was it about? Oh, right, two guys in their twenties charged for attempting to rob a convenience store. She won't be able to talk since she's getting the final touches on her closing statement tomorrow. Armin certainly won't be able to talk since his face is probably attached to Annie's. Or maybe they _are_ just watching a movie. It's hard to tell with him sometimes…_

It would have been nice to have someone to distract him from the case. He and Levi had been unable to find out anything else earlier, but he might still be able to unearth something during the night before he went to the station in the morning to go over some last minute details and arrange the patrols for tomorrow night.

Levi had sketched out a rough draft before Eren had hastily left the station only hours earlier. It was a horrible sketch, with lumpy square-like circles representing the patrol cars, wavering lines that barely resembled straight lines, let alone streets, and crude boxes to represent the buildings. The only things on the rough draft that have looked decent were the little X's that represented the officers and their respective positions. That had led to Levi snarling at Eren, his exact words being: "I'm a damn detective, not a fucking art major!"

Eren chuckled at the memory and raked his hands through his hair, messing it up even more than it had been prior to the touch of the careless hands. Being around Levi… it was confusing under half of the circumstances, distracting the other half. _He's infuriating; he's confusing; he's irritable; he's smart; he's hot; he's – I really need to stop this train of thoughts before it gets too far._ His computer let out a string of notes as it finished starting up, the usual popups of Windows Live Messenger and a Java update begging for attention appearing on the screen.

Eren closed both of the windows and opened one of the folders that cluttered the desktop. He clucked his tongue, shaking his mouse around aimlessly before he minimized the folder and opened another one. A shift and click of the mouse had the scroll bar going down a little bit before he reached the bottom of the folder. Eren double-clicked the program and waited patiently for it to load.

A small white window popped up, just a small blank square across the center of his screen for a few minutes before it disappeared, only to be replaced by a window that was actually capable of being manipulated. Eren maximized the program's window and waited for the last of the information to load. The Breaker program finally finished loading, only the small blue circle in the upper left hand corner signifying that it was actually still doing something. A white line swept through the circle, moving in a clockwise motion, reminiscent of radars or of some types of loading circles. Eren looked at the status bar beside of the circle. **68% of 100% complete**.

Eren ran his hand over his jaw, the slight stubble growing there scratching at his palm. If it had taken almost three weeks to get up to sixty-eight percent, there was a possibility that the decoding wouldn't finish up for at least one to two more weeks. That was one to two weeks that they didn't have. Hell, they barely had a single day, and that was just to prevent another double homicide. That wasn't even counting the unpredictable kidnappings that were occurring, scattered across the city with no rhyme or reason for why these children would be the victims.

An angry breath blew out of his nose and Eren kicked the leg of the coffee table, sending the vase of carnations wobbling. His arm shot out and stabilized the vase before it could tip and sending water and withering flowers all over his computer, table, and floor. Eren sighed and minimized the program, leaving it to chip away at the eternity-esque code. Who knew how much longer it would take to crack? Hopefully it would crack before any drastic changes occurred, like another change in the pattern. Maybe whatever that folder was holding would give them an idea of their plans, maybe it wouldn't. Eren could only hope that this wouldn't be a hit-or-miss occurrence, because God knew they needed a boon for this case.

He pressed his palms together and pressed his forefingers to his lips, leaning back and blowing a breath out against his fingers as he stared at the screen, his thoughts tumultuous despite the calm outwards appearance which he bore. Eren bit his lip and rose from the couch. He made his way to the bathroom for two things, two things he kept swearing he wouldn't touch. The bottle of sleeping pills was only half full. The razor still had a smattering of blood staining the otherwise clear metallic surface. A wry smile crossed his lips. _It's a twisted life I lead._

* * *

"Jean Kirschtein, you will be in a group with Sasha Braus, Mary Louis, Gabe Harrow, and Brian Singer. You five will be patrolling Sun Street. Thomas Wagner, you will be in a group with Vivian Moore, Britt Helm, Alec Conrad, and Sarah West. You five will be patrolling Treble Street. Connie Springer, you will be in a group with Mina Carolina, Derek Little, Ginger Smith, and Gabriel Hawthorn. You five will be patrolling Starfall Street. If you don't recognize the names of some of the people in your group, that is because they are from the Yalkell District. Those were all that they could pull together for this, but the curfew has already been set and will hopefully be enforced by the remaining officers of the Yalkell District."

Levi watched as Irvin passed out the folders to the five officers that had either been selected or had volunteered for the patrol. He would talk to them himself but Irvin had a way with people that kept the debates to a dull roar without threatening to strangle them. Thomas still appeared to be nervous around him after the last time he had tried to handle a group of officers on his own. _It's because they're all morons… Petra, Oluo, Erd, and Gunther were the people I would have picked. Damn Irvin for not letting me borrow his best officers._

On top of that, Irvin wouldn't let either Levi or Eren go out on the patrols either. That was excusable in Eren's case since the man probably still didn't even know how to hold a gun, much less fire one without nailing himself in the foot. That, however, did not excuse Irvin's resolution of keeping him out of the fray. Irvin knew God damn well what he was capable of, but no, that blonde bastard wanted him back at the station.

Levi shifted his weight and leaned back on the edge of a desk so he could cross his ankles. Eren stood beside him, his eyes darting around, his mouth sealed shut for once. That seemed to be happening more often as of late, although Levi was unsure as of why. "Are we allowed to shoot on sight?" The question came from Jean Kirschtein.

"Only if they resist arrest or reveal a firearm or weapon of any kind. Otherwise, you are to refrain from shooting anyone until they can be identified as either a suspect or someone out past curfew. It would be nice if you refrained from shooting the civilians though. It would certainly give me less paperwork to deal with."

Levi snorted. Of course Irvin would care about the paperwork right alongside of the civilians. Eren's head cocked towards Levi, a questioning look on the young man's face. Levi shook his head, his lips turned in both half of an exasperated grimace and half of a miniscule smile. There was no point in explaining and Levi didn't want to give Irvin the chance to drag out the briefing any longer by repeating himself because he felt that he couldn't be heard or some shit like that. Sometimes Irvin could be almost as infuriating as Hanji, and that was a high bar that Hanji had set too.

"Your groups will be patrolling the assigned street. If there are any problems you are to shoot a flare into the air and wait for backup, using any means necessary to control the situation till help arrives, but try to exercise caution while doing so." Irvin pulled the box of flares off of the desk behind him. They rarely used flares, but Levi knew that Irvin believed in being prepared for every scenario. The blonde even offered a special bomb defusing class on weekends sometimes.

"We will be giving you flares that will produce some light so that they will be visible once they are fired. Green is for if you have successfully captured a suspect. This does not include civilians. Based on Levi and Eren's theories, there are several suspects. Anyone travelling in groups should be immediately stopped and a flare should be launched as soon as possible. Yellow is if one or more of the suspects has managed to escape. Point the flare in the direction of where they are headed and backup will adjust accordingly. Use red if the situation turns hostile in any way."

The five officers nodded silently, their eyes fixed on Irvin. None of them had used flares before so it was vital that they pay attention. "The Yalkell officers are getting the same rundown so there's no need to explain anything to them. Are there any questions?" All five shook their heads. "Good. Now go start preparing for tonight – it's going to be a long one. You are expected to be ready by six, so take care of what you need to by then. Anyone later than six will be left behind and can expect consequences." The five nodded solemnly at Irvin's words and stood, tucking the folders beneath their arms and moving away. Irvin turned to face left, a small smirk on his face. "You could probably do that too if you didn't come off so intimidating."

Levi rolled his eyes and folded his arms. "Shut up," he muttered, "I'll go about things like I want to."

The smile held Irvin's lips up for a few moments longer before they dropped down, his face growing serious. "What do you two plan on doing tonight?"

Levi shrugged and looked at Eren, who merely shrugged in response. "We'll probably stay here and see what else we can do concerning finding information. Which means Eren should probably go out and get enough coffee to last us a month or two." He could see the indignant look crossing Eren's face before the brown-haired man smiled and stuck out his tongue and turned away. Levi's eyes tracked Eren as the younger man left the station, a vague feeling of disappointment rattling about in his chest.

Where had the sarcastic replies, the cheery smiles, the witty remarks, and the energetic vibe gone? They had disappeared as of late, instead being replaced by awkward silences and comments, even by Levi's standards. Levi sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. There would be time question that later. For now he needed his mind on the case in hopes that they could iron out a few final details before six o'clock, which was three hours away.

* * *

The five selected officers left at five till six. They would remain in contact with Irvin, Levi, and Eren through a network of cellphones and payphones. Levi set sand colored coffee cup onto the desk with a soft clunk and leaned back, his eyes fixed on the board where the map and pictures had been tacked up. Eren joined him a few moments later, a midnight blue cup steaming gently in his hands. "Do you think we've got a chance of getting these Titans tonight?"

Levi shrugged and tapped the desk, his nails clicking away on the hard surface. "I believe we have a chance. We've narrowed down the places to search so at least we know where to look. On top of that, we also have a general idea of when they plan to strike."

Eren nodded and sipped his coffee. _That is assuming that they stick to the pattern of course_. Levi left the thought unspoken. It was best to hope that they erred and stuck to their pattern. He glanced at the clock; 6:15. It really was going to be a long night, with the uncertainty about the entirety of this damnable operation and the anticipation that tonight could be the beginning of the end for the Titans. Levi wrapped his fingers around the rim of his cup and raised it to his lips, curls of steam wrapping around his face as they rose towards the ceiling.

A square-shaped blur, white and red, shot by the front of his face. Levi reflexively inhaled some of his coffee in surprise, sending it burning down the wrong part of his throat. The object hit his desk with a smack and a soft hiss followed it as it slid across the slick surface. Levi coughed to clear the coffee that had slipped down the wrong pipe before he looked at what had passed his face by; it was a deck of cards. He glared up at Eren who smiled sheepishly in return. "What? I thought it would be a way to pass the time."

* * *

Eren, as it turned out, was surprisingly proficient at a variety of card games, bluffing his way with some skill through rounds of poker and showing restraint when they played Black Jack. Irvin had joined them for a few hands of poker when he took a break from his paperwork at around seven. The hands of the clock had slipped on by, seven turning into eight without the reappearance of the blonde man. Levi dealt the cards with practiced ease, creating a third imaginary person to be their dealer.

Despite the lack of money being wagered it was still at least somewhat entertaining. _It's been a long time since I played for money…_ Levi thought absently as he checked his cards; a king and an ace. Oh, Eren was so screwed with this hand. _Hell, it's been a long time since I played, period. I suppose you don't lose skills ingrained upon your mind despite the years away._

Eren tapped the desk and Levi passed him a card. The green-eyed man looked at it and groaned. "Damn it! I should have left it as is. I bust," he said as he flipped his cards over, revealing two tens and a five.

Levi flipped his own cards and the cards of their 'dealer' over. "That's because you're an idiot who can't settle for what you've got." Eren stuck his tongue out and swept the cards up again, shuffling them around a bit before tossing them out again. "I'll get you with this hand."

Levi snorted and raised the edges of his cards up. "I'd like to see you try."

* * *

Twelve o'clock brought them no news about the patrols aside from the snide reports from Jean about how "nothing is going on aside from our asses falling off from the cold you bastards." A fresh pot of coffee had been made a half hour ago and finished off within fifteen minutes. The cards had been discarded in favor of reading through the reports in Levi's case and reading a book swiped from Petra's desk in Eren's case. Levi couldn't be bothered to look at the book, much less check the title. Whatever it was, Eren seemed to be thoroughly engrossed, his head bowed towards the book and his bright eyes fixed upon the text.

Levi sighed and rubbed his temples, his thumb and forefinger moving in slow, meticulous circles. The night was dragging on more than usual. He had been so focused on making the plans for the night as solid as possible that he hadn't even considered the down time that they would have throughout the night. Levi sighed and shut his eyes. The station was quiet; only the sounds of the nightlife, the rustle of pages, the sound of fingers scratching at fabric and something else.

Levi opened his eyes again. That last noise was recent. He glanced to his right, where the sound was coming from. His eyes focused on Eren, and to be more precise, what Eren was doing. The brown-haired man was scratching at his forearm, a small ring of white visible beneath his long black sleeves near his wrist. Levi watched Eren for a few more moments. He scratching became more incessant, almost desperate, but his eyes were still fixed on the book.

Levi's hand shot out, although whether it was on its own accord or not, he couldn't say. Perhaps it was just instinct that made his hand move to grasp Eren's arm. His fingers curled around Eren's wrist, pulling him from his reverie. Startled green eyes met hard and concerned gray ones that were filled with questions.. A brown eyebrow arched upwards over one of the green eyes, confusion sparking in its depths. "Levi…? Did I do something wrong?"

Eren appeared to not have noticed that Levi was gripping his arm. Levi dug his fingers in and pulled Eren's arm closer so that he could pull the sleeve back with his other hand. White bandages, stark against his tanned skin, were revealed. The bandages were mostly white except for the splotches of red coming through the underside. "What?" Eren said defensively, attempting to tug his arm back to his body, but Levi's strong grip on his arm prevented it from going anywhere.

Levi gripped Eren's shirt collar with his free hand and pulled his face close till they were inches apart. "I thought you healed quickly," Levi hissed, his voice unsettled with worry and anger. "So explain why this isn't. This is the third time I've seen something like this, so either you fall a lot or there's something you aren't telling me."

Eren's face went from tan to a vibrant red and he tried to pull away from Levi, jerking backwards against the tight grasp he couldn't break. "I-It's nothing, I swear! Someone just… they just tripped me when I was walking home. It's just that sometimes these things don't heal." The words spewed from his mouth too quick, eyes shifted around too much, body fidgeted too much to be coincidental. He was lying.

Levi glared at Eren but let him go. Eren pulled back into his seat, clutching his arm to his chest and breathing hard for some reason, his face still crimson. Levi watched as Eren glanced up at him once more before he twisted away, his back facing Levi. _Great… I guess he's claustrophobic too. Way to go Levi, real smooth there. _Levi let out an angry huff and leaned back, concern creeping up onto his face.

_Why are you hurt Eren? Just what are you hiding?_

* * *

Jean, Mina, Sasha, Connie, and Thomas all dragged themselves in Sunday morning at six o'clock, heavy bags beneath their eyes. Their miserable and agitated faces said it all; no one had showed, not even an innocent civilian out past curfew. By ten o'clock, no news of any double homicides had come in.

It seemed like they had gone back practically to square one, only this time they had more information than they had originally had. It was still frustrating, infuriatingly so. Levi had been forced to resist the urge to start strangling anyone that walked past him for a good thirty minutes after the five officers returned from the failed patrol. "They changed it again," Eren murmured, looking down at the facts that they had accumulated.

Levi could see that the green eyes had long since glazed over from exhaustion and tired confusion. He wasn't even sure if Eren actually comprehended anything he was reading at the moment. "They're smarter than your average criminal group," Levi murmured, scanning over the note again and again. "These Titans keep trying to throw us off their trail. They know we can't keep patrols like that up for extended periods of time. They know exactly what they're doing."

"Maybe… maybe we could get the Yalkell District to see up five man patrols…" Eren's words were punctuated sporadically by gaping yawns. "If we can arrange patrols like that nightly… maybe we'll have a chance at stopping them…"

Levi shook his head, "Have you seen the size of the Yalkell police division in its entirety? It's kind of pathetic really. They can barely field a hundred men and women for the entirety of their district, and you've seen the size of Yalkell. They need every one of those men and women they have just to handle their own cases." Levi shook his head, "We're going to have to handle this on our own for the most part. This should be just fucking _lovely_."

* * *

Sunday night brought them no calls concerning any new kidnappings or double homicides. Eren had left the police station around ten. Getting home had been quite the experience considering he had crashed hard after the surplus of caffeine in his bloodstream finally left him. It was hard enough getting his feet to move in a straight line, let alone to retain his balance. He had no doubt that some might have mistaken him for a drunk on his way home, but Eren couldn't quite bring himself to care at that time. After several attempts, he finally managed to get his apartment door open, barely taking a few moments to lock it behind him before he crashed on the couch, his face pressed into the gray fabric.

He woke up around seven o'clock PM. The dark sky was visible through open curtains, the stars above actually visible. Eren scrubbed his eyes, wiping away the last remnants of sleep before he rose and stumbled into the kitchen on stiff legs. A half pot of coffee and a bowl of cereal later, Eren plopped himself back down on the couch in front of his laptop. He lifted the lid and hit the power button, waiting patiently for it to start up. He closed out Windows Live Messenger and the Java Update popups, going straight for the file containing the Breaker program. He opened it up and sat back to wait once more as it loaded.

His eyes wandered around the apartment, flickering over everything and lingering on nothing. There was nothing of interest to bother keeping his eyes on, no point in even bothering trying to find something. Everything was just so… monotonous. Eren leaned back and sighed, his hands rising to cover his face as he closed his eyes. _I'm tired… Not even in the sense that I need to sleep. I'm just… tired._

The case certainly wasn't helping his mind, which felt as fragile as a spider web looked, simply a pattern held together by thin and delicate-looking strands. He could feel it bending, straining, and breaking beneath the pressure of the case, going back to how it had been, regressing. Eren shuddered and clamped his hands on his arms, digging his fingers into the sleeves and the flesh beneath. He could feel them closing in, the walls of his mind. He could feel the dark corners growing with every moment that passed.

A beep, soft but still audible, pulled him from his darkening thoughts, back into the real world. His eyes focused back on the screen. A small popup box had appeared in front of the Breaker program, a red circle with a white X through it on the left hand corner of it. _Fuck… This can't be good._ His eyes darted across the popup, skimming the text.

**_A critical error has occurred and has corrupted most to all of the specified data. The corrupted data will now be purged from all locations on this computer._**

Eren's jaw went slack, his mouth dropping and his eyes widening. "_Fuck_!" His hands flew to the keyboard and mouse, bringing up a command prompt for the popup. He entered a line of code: **_Sorry, an error has occurred_**. He entered another line of code, his fingers flying across the keyboard: **_Sorry, an error has occurred. Sorry, an error has occurred. Sorry, an error has occurred. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry._**

Again and again and again, no matter how many codes, how many lines he entered, the same message cropped up again and again and again after each input. _Failure!_ That's what the red text screamed at him. That's what the computer screamed at him. That's what his mind screamed at him. _Failure, failure, you're nothing but a failure!_ **_Sorry, an error has occurred_**.

The command prompt closed on him before he could begin entering another string of codes, one that would have been a last-ditch attempt to keep the program from shutting down. Eren watched in numb horror as the command prompt disappeared, taking the warning popup with it. The Breaker program disappeared, leaving him with a blank screen. Another small, white window appeared a few moments later, the black text painfully visible against the white background.

**_A critical error was detected within the system. The system has purged all infected and corrupted files. The total percentage deleted is: 98%. The remaining files have finished decoding and are available for examination._**

Eren stared at the screen for a long time, his eyes fixed on the screen but unable to read, to comprehend, the text for almost the entirety of that time. His stomach churned with fury and confusion, building up like a volcano about to erupt. He slammed the lid shut and booked his fingers under the bottom of the laptop. White-hot rage coursed through him, making his thoughts irrational.

A part of his mind knew it, the last shred of rationality within him, but he didn't want to listen to it. The majority of his brain screamed at him to break something, break the source of the horrified rage that filled him. It screamed at him to break the laptop, to take out his frustration on something, _anything_, that would keep him from doing something far worse. _The remaining files have finished decoding and are available for examination._

Eren froze with the laptop suspended halfway up off of the coffee table. The scraps of fury filling him melted away with that single rational thought. He set the laptop back down on the table and took one breath. That wasn't enough to calm him completely so he took another. _I can't believe I almost destroyed it. I'm such an irrational idiot. _Eren sat still for a few minutes, his eyes shut and his breaths flowing in and out slowly.

He opened his eyes again after a few minutes and lifted the laptop lid, the soft blue glow greeting him once more. The little window was still there, a small light of hope that had remained even after the crushing blow of darkness that had hit moments before. Eren opened the folder that contained the information they had acquired from Masters' computer. Two folders were gone, leaving only one of the encrypted ones in its place. The small lock icon was gone now, the folder accessible for scrutiny. Eren opened it, his body tense and his breath caught in his throat.

A double click of the mouse opened the folder, revealing two documents labeled **'Project Eoten** and **'Titans'** respectively. Both documents were available for reading. Based on the details given, neither document was over ten kilobytes, nor had they been edited in a long time. Eren clicked on the first document; chary about what corruption it might be carrying but too desperate to not open it. The document window popped up, the text taking a few extra seconds to load before the document completely settled. Eren swallowed nervously and began to read.

**Chapter 14: End**

* * *

Hi darlings~ I hope you enjoyed chapter 14! Haha, I would have had this up an hour sooner, but I ran some ideas through an awesome person~ Before you ask, yes, the information was deleted for a reason. Alright, it's late, the time when I should actually be awake comes too soon, so here we go:

**callyrose:** Only your niece... XD You're too amusing for your own good sometimes, you know that?  
**layer14:** Haha, I just keep on teasing them, don't I? I hope I clarified things I bit, but just let me know if I didn't and tell me what I can clarify on concerning what we were talking about earlier.  
**iciruzuka:** Mmhmm~  
**TheOtaku2:** Thank you~ I suppose it's because I thought it over for so bloody long XD  
**blackirishawk:** Haha, and there's lots more to come~ As for the last parts... well, you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?


	15. First Strike

**END GAME**

**Chapter 15: First Strike**

**Warning: This chapter contains themes of violence and gore. Please read with caution.**

* * *

**Project Eoten/Eotena**

_Today's date is July 14__th__, 2013._ _I've found out something incredible, something terrifying. I never quite thought it would be quite like this. I found out what M is planning in the coming months and what those plans will lead to in the coming years. She's planning on abducting children, much like those she had taken back in 1989, but this time the numbers will be higher._

To explain everything fully, I'll need to start from the beginning, which was revealed to me over the course of the night after days of rigorous 'training.' That is their code for torturing us until we submit, until we swear that we will never utter a word, not on pain of death, but on pain of living. They've still got Xavier down in the cells and it's been ten years since he threatened to go to the police. They've been torturing for almost the entire time; I'm pretty sure he's gone insane by now.

M showed me the notebook, Meridew's notebook. The cover was made of cracked leather and it looked like about half of the pages had gotten damp and then dried till they were somewhat flat. I wish I could have scanned the contents but I was trapped in the dungeons and M never let the notebook leave her sights. Everything I'm recording is based off of what I remember. Some of it is believable, most of it is not.

Meridew was once an archaeologist before he turned to the medical practice, and in turn, to the Nazi party. He took nine colleagues of his out on an expedition to some cliffs by the sea in the northernmost part of Russia, although the exact location was scribbled out. They had just reached the cliffs when a blizzard set upon them. One of the men noticed a hole in the cliff face and they made their way too it. Two men were lost on the desperate trek to the cave in the cliff. By the time the remaining eight had crawled into the cave, the blizzard had overtaken them; there was no hope for the two lost men. Meridew led them further into the cave, taking them down into the dark abyss, illuminated only by the oil lamps that they carried with them.

After an undetermined amount of time they stumbled upon a cavern so massive that their lanterns would barely have penetrated the darkness, had it not been for two factors that dully illuminated the cavern. Apparently the cavern was warm, humid even, and covered with glowing green fungus and large pools, more like small lakes in some cases if the descriptions are accurate, that were filling with phosphorescent life forms ranging from plankton to large, indiscernible things. Of course, the fact that the cavern is even humid is practically impossible unless it is heated by geothermal vents beneath the earth, but apparently only the cavern was warm, not the adjoining cave(s).

One of the women of the group approached one of the pools and placed her hand in it. She turned back to comment when a large tentacle supposedly wrapped around her wrist and dragged her into the pool with only the slightest of sound. Apparently the water quickly became dark with blood and she never surfaced. Meridew appeared to have slipped from the track of sanity after this incident, having disappeared for a long time into the caves based on the notes of one of his colleagues. His next entry read something along the lines of; "They're gone now. I killed them, I had too. I had to protect _them_. I've searched so long for them and I've finally found them… the Eotenas."

He then went on a page-long rant about these creatures he had found, although he was very vague about them. The only solid description of them that I can cobble together would have to be "androgynous humanoid figures of about ten to fifteen feet." That is strange because not only have no skeletons like these described creatures been found, but it also raises the question of, if they are real and not a figment of an insane man's imagination, are they possibly ancestors of the human race?

Personally, I find this whole thing hard to believe. It would be impossible if not for the occurrences over the following years and even up until this day. The nine colleagues that went with him were never heard of again.

Meridew returned from the expedition three weeks later with some tale of everyone but him freezing in a blizzard. Soon after, he turned to the medical practice. The details got a bit shady around here, along with most of it having been scratched out, but I could still discern some parts. Apparently he spent the next ten years experimenting with blood types, seeing which was compatible with the blood he had extracted from the bodies. AB negative was the only match, although I personally have no idea why that blood type would be the only receptor that would not fight the alien DNA off, instead trying to merge with it.

After he found the matching blood type, Meridew began to experiment on people. Children appeared to be the most successful, with the survivors of the injections. More than half of the rest died while the rest remained unaffected. Meridew raised the three children, two boys and a girl. The girl, he groomed to be the next leader of the cult he was forming, the 'Titans.' That girl was M. The boys were L and J.

Once Meridew was executed for war crimes, they became the leaders of the Titans. I find this hard to believe considering M, L, and J all look like they are in their late twenties to early thirties, yet they all claim to be the original children. It makes me wonder just what this DNA does to a human. After M ascended to the head of the Titans, we apparently remained relatively secretive. During that time they worked to refine the virus and make it more compatible with those who were compatible.

In 1989 M began to give out orders to kidnap children again in order to continue Meridew's experiments. I was there for that; we captured just under twenty-four children. There were twenty-five subjects all together. I didn't find out about the last subject until recently. She survived the injections and the virus, as it had come to be called, had affected her like the four other survivors. I always knew Reiss was a crazy bastard, but this is a whole new level, even for him. Then again, the man has half a dozen wives and twice as many children, so I doubt he cares if a couple become cannon fodder for what he calls "the good of mankind."

He keeps asking G why he won't offer his son up. G doesn't do a lot of talking anymore, not since about sixteen years ago. He's changed, G has, and not for the better. Concerning M, her plan is to create a race of people who have had this virus injected into them. She wants to use them to crush and conquer a few countries. Her plans mean making an army, albeit a smaller one than traditional ones, but she keeps saying that they're superior to normal humans.

_This is where G comes back in; one day he's agreeing with her, one day he's disagreeing, and one day, he's demanding that she go for world domination. He's really flipped the lid. At this rate, I fear for M's life… mine even if it comes down to it._

* * *

Eren raked his fingers through the mess of hair on his head, his green eyes locked on the last line of text in the document. He didn't blink and he didn't read, instead opting to stare straight ahead, seeing without actually seeing. He tore his eyes away after a few minutes and squeezed the bridge of his nose, a sigh escaping his lips. _I don't know how much of this shit can be considered fact or the runaway imagination of a crazy man who probably had too much lead or something in his system at the time._

However, it was also the only explanation for why the children were being kidnapped and why some of them hadn't been found. The fact that there had actually been a fifth living test subject was startling, but the fact that her own father had let her be experimented on was shocking. Although who the Reiss man was, Eren couldn't say. It sounded like a name that Petra or Armin might know, but asking them face-to-face might be better. Eren clicked the file tab on the document and printed out the two pages worth of information, two copies; one for the file and one for Levi to review. The detective would certainly be pissed that almost all of the data had corrupted, but hopefully he would understand.

_Conquering several countries…_ Eren dug his nails into his brow, trying to focus. _Armies… Russia… cliffs… the kidnappings… experiments… There's too much to sort through for a clear answer. We certainly can't make an expedition to Russia based on this along, not to mention the fact that we need to keep close tabs on this case. We still don't know when the next murder is going to occur. Those damnable bastards just had to leave behind all of those clues and then change things up again._

Eren glanced at the clock on his computer; 8:23. Levi would probably still be awake. Eren leaned back and pulled his phone out of his pocket, not the easiest task even if he was stretched out. He unlocked the phone and scrolled down to Levi's number, hesitating momentarily before he punched the call button and raised the phone to his ear. The phone rang once, twice, three times. It rang for nearly two minutes before the voicemail came on. _"You have reached the voicemail of Levi, please leave a message after the tone."_ "Levi, I've got some important news, which is both good and bad, concerning Masters' files. Call me when you get this."

The phone hit the couch with a muted thud and Eren sighed. _Dammit… any other time he would answer his bloody phone._ Eren pressed his palms to his temples, eyes clenched shut. _He's so confusing. I don't understand him at all._

* * *

Eren entered the bookstore on Monday, his head spinning as it tried to keep wrapping around the information from the document. He hadn't gotten around to reading through the second document as he had instead focusing on seeing if the document had any grains of truth or whether it was just a hoax pulled on Masters.

He had managed to uncover that Meridew had indeed been an archaeologist in the early 1900's. He had been scheduled to go to the northern coasts of Russia, from the East Siberian Sea all the way to the Bering Strait. The nine companions he travelled with were never heard from again after the expedition, their deaths labeled as accidents in a blizzard. Meridew had stated that the blizzard had hit them around the time that they had reached a point on the coast more or less even with the bottom point of Wrangel Island, but the information was of doubtful credibility.

Afterwards, he had become entered the medical field and became a doctor. There were also scattered reports of several of his patients dying suddenly, whether they had merely been suffering from a cold or cancer before seeing him. Three of the patients even went missing; Ada Schmidt, Baden Wagner, and Ferdinand Koch, although Meridew was never suspected to have been involved with their kidnappings.

Eren hoisted up a stack of books and started putting them away, moving aimlessly amongst the shelves, too wrapped up in his thoughts to pay any more attention than necessary. _I'll bet anything that those three children that were taken are the original M, L, and J, although the latter two probably aren't in that order. I doubt that they didn't age; they'd either have to have some kind of disease or that virus is real. Or they've been replaced by people who take up their names. The virus… the caves… none of that could possibly be real! If it was real, surely scientists would have discovered these things before now._ Eren slid two copies of _Warm Bodies_ by Isaac Marion into place and moved on.

_But training an army? God, these people must be delusional. They have five people from 1989 and the two to four children from the current case. Besides, even if they do manage to create this army of theirs, what could possibly differentiate these children from the rest? _ Eren slid the final books into place and meandered back to the front desk.

Marco raised his head, a smile on his face. "Hey Eren, finished already? You're a lifesaver!" A grin lit up Marco's face but Eren couldn't find the heart to smile back at the freckled man. "What is it Eren? You look like something's troubling you."

Eren shrugged and leaned up on the counter, a grimace flashing across his face. "It's this case I've been on for the last few weeks… It just keeps going in circles! One moment we think we've got the pattern nailed down and the next they change it up again. Based on the pattern of the last three cases of double homicides, they occurred on the same days, but the one we were expecting to occur last night never occurred. It's confusing as hell. I don't know if they made a mistake trying to murder the latest people or if they're changing patterns again. It's just too random."

Marco nodded, a sympathetic look entering his eyes. "That happens sometimes. Not every criminal is going to be your run-of-the-mill idiot. Admittedly, from what Jean has told me, your case is a bit… abnormal to say the least, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give up. Maybe they're leaving abstract hints about what days the murders will occur on based on words. For example, some people say Thursday was derived from the Norse god Thor, so maybe things like that within the poems could be clues for when the next murders will occur."

Eren looked at Marco, tendrils of hope leaking into his eyes. "Maybe…" he murmured, "I'll have to check after the shift has finished." Marco smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I know how much this case means to you, but just remember that if any emergencies come up, just tell me and you can go." Eren nodded, "Thanks Marco. You're the coolest boss ever. No wonder people all you Freckled Jesus."

Marco's normally pale face flushed, his cheeks going bright red and making it hard to see the freckles his nickname had been partially coined from. No Eren, not you too," Marco moaned. He covered his face with both hands and began to feign sobbing into them before he pulled them away, his face more or less back to the same color as usual, "Seriously though, no Freckled Jesus."

Eren sighed and rolled his eyes in a mocking manner, "Fine, fine, whatever you say… Freckled Jesus..." Marco glared at him half-heartedly before a smile rolled out onto his face. The freckled man shook his head, a wry smile on his face.

"Oh whatever," he grumbled good-naturedly, the smile still on his face as he spun the chair around so that his back was facing Eren. "Go count grains of sand or something," Marco said, his shoulders shaking with laughter as he lifted a book from the counter and flipped it open to where he had lodged a bookmark.

"I would but we don't have any sand here," Eren pointed out. His leg began to vibrate mere seconds later. No, that wasn't his leg, just his phone. Eren straightened up and extracted the phone. "Hello?"

_"Eren, get your ass down to the station _now_. We've got a problem so hurry the hell up."_

Eren shut his gaping mouth after a moment. "Levi? What's going on? Did you get my message?" Marco twisted in his chair to look back at Eren, a mask of concern and confusion on his face.

_"Eren just shut up and get down here _right now_. You can ask questions later but right now you really need to get down to the station."_

"Alright, alright, I'll be there in ten minutes." Levi ended the call before he could add any more. Eren looked up at Marco, an apologetic look on his face. "I'm sorry, something's going on at the station."

Marco waved his hand, "Go on, go on, I understand. Don't worry about getting paid, you're covered this time."

Eren leaned over the counted and pulled his bag over, "Thank you Marco, you're an absolute saint!" Marco merely smiled and waved his hand as Eren darted out the door and dashed down the street. Eren sprinted through the streets, dodging around people and waiting impatiently at crosswalks when he was unable to dart across when the risks weren't quite so high.

He burst into the station out of breath and warm from the sprint from the bookstore to the station. Heads poked up around the station, somber and teary-eyed, which was highly unusual. Eren made his way back to Levi's desk, shedding his thick green parka as he went. Levi was standing by the board when he walked up, glaring at the map. "What's going on?" Eren demanded, tossing his coat and bag onto the chair he usually occupied. Levi spun to face him, his face grim.

"Several things have happened. Two more children went missing this morning. We've found one of the bodies from the previous kidnapping. It's being examined now. Also, there's been another double homicide. They changed things… again." Levi murmured, his hands clenching into tight balls, his knuckles going white. "I was waiting for you to show before I went to the scene. They've already called in the identity of the bodies… They're not civilians this time."

"Who are they?" Eren demanded, desperate for the answer. It must not have been good based on the expressions of those around him. "It's two of the officers, Mina Carolina and Nac Tius."

_No… that's impossible. I just talked to them yesterday… they can't be._

* * *

The wind was colder and harsher without the protection of buildings on all sides when they stepped out onto the flat roof of the apartment complex, loose bits of stone crunching occasionally beneath their feet as they strode across the beige concrete liberally littered with cigarette butts and glass bottles. They were on Sun Street, apartment complex 41A-50A, a building right next to Jackson's Music Shop, once of their anticipated scenes for the next set of double homicides.

The words to the poem filtered through Eren's head, the realization setting in as certain parts jumped out at him. '_Do you hear now, the people's __**sound**__? __**Above**__ the __**street**__, the __**Stars**__ wait to be found.' _On a street linked to a star, next to a music shop, on top of a building. It was pure chance that the resident of 46A came up that morning for a smoke and found the bodies and pools of blood.

Eren pressed his fingers to his temples as he stared at the concrete that his feet passed over. They had timed it too early. They had missed a clue. Or maybe the Titans had simply changed their pattern again. Eren saw the pool of blood first, the bodies themselves mostly hidden behind a transformer that had been painted a sickly green with rust creeping along the edges. He could see an ankle, slim and feminine, between the navy blue pants and black shoe. Petra stood in front of the transformer, her back to the bodies that lay beyond. Eren walked around the transformer and stared down at the bodies, his stomach churning and eyes swimming.

Mina lay closest to the transformer, her head thrown back, frost coating her eyelashes, her mouth gaping open in a silent scream, and her limbs literally flung about. Both of her arms and her legs had been roighly sawed away from her body and thrown a few feet away, lying in their own little puddles of blood, leaving jagged stumps with broken numbs of bones protruding from the stiff muscles and flesh. Several of her fingers lay about, a mixture of frozen ramrod straight and curled upwards like blood-smeared claws.

Her fingers were discolored from frostbite, ranging from pale white to purple and blue at the edges beneath the smears of blood. The stumps were crusted with frozen blood that was a mixture of black and red; the temperature had dropped below freezing last night and it wasn't warm enough for the blood to have thawed out yet. It was doubtful that they would be able to pry the limbs from where they had frozen to the blood and concrete until they could acquire the equipment to remove the bodies.

Eren dragged his gaze on towards the next body, that of Nac Tius. There was an ugly, gaping slash at the base of Nac's neck, split clear across the front of his throat. A waterfall of blood had frozen on him, his pale and frost bitten skin on his neck and lower jaw coated with a glaze of crimson, his navy blue police uniform darkened with blood. His left eye gazed up sightlessly, a milky look having already entered it. The right eye was missing, leaving a black and red socket in its place where his eyelids, eye, and skin had been ripped away, revealing the pink and red muscle beneath.

A large knife, more of a dagger really, had been buried in his skull, centered on his forehead. A spider web of blood trails led away from the blade, which had been jammed in up to the base of the blade, the light brown wooden hilt stained crimson where it met with the blade. The force that would have been needed to break through the skull and go so deep with a single blow must have been great; Nac's attacker had been strong, much stronger than Nac himself.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, firm yet gentle. "Eren, stop crying. It won't bring them back. The only thing we can do now is ensure they didn't die needlessly." Eren looked down at Levi who stared up at him with unreadable blue-gray eyes. "I'm not crying," Eren protested. Levi mimed wiping at his face and Eren mimicked him, wiping at his own. His gloved fingers came away damp. He hadn't felt the tears making their way down his face despite the frigid air that made the trails they left sting now that he had noticed them. Eren wiped his face and only when he was sure that he had gotten all of the stray tears did Levi remove his hand from Eren's shoulder.

Levi knelt down beside Mina's body and flipped the pocket over her heart up, revealing the plastic baggie that had been pushed inside. Levi pulled it out with two fingers clutching one of the corners; a yellow note lay folded inside. "Eren, walk around the edge of the roof and see if there are any ladders or handholds that would allow them to leave once they had finished dropping the bodies." Eren nodded and turned away from the bodies, from the people he had once called friends.

The top of the building was edged by a waist-high concrete wall dotted with dark gray smears with cigarette butts resting in against the bottom of the walls. Eren leaned over the wall he was closest to, peering carefully over the edge, his hands clenched on the edge of the wall. Windows were scattered aimlessly about the apartment complex on the three floors that were visible on the five-story apartment. None of them were close enough for any handholds to be reached in order to make a path to the top of the building below.

Eren glanced at the front of the building; the windows were close enough but the ledges were far too small for a person to stand, much less maneuver stealthily about as they descended. The side next to the music shop was next, on the ride side of the building if a person looked at it from the street. Three floors of windows were visible, their ledges just as narrow as the ones on the front. The roof of the music shop was clear of debris where chunks of mortar and brick could have been removed.

The back side of the building contained something slightly more promising; a fire escape going from the fifth floor all the way down to the second floor, where a ladder was hoisted up, ready to be dropped at a moment's notice. The stairs didn't extend all the way up to the room, but there was only about five or six feet between the thin metal railing, painted light gray to stand out against the red bricks of the building, and the lip of the roof, where there was enough space for one to hook their fingers and lower themselves down.

Eren leaned over further and peered down at the staircase, looking for any marks, scrapes, or smears on the metal. There was something on the bar below, a smear of black-red liquid that had frozen to the worn gray metal. A smudge of black on the gray platform, a place where a footprint could have been left and smeared as the foot had lifted. His feet were barely touching the concrete when a hand clamped down on his shoulder and wrenched him back.

"I said look over the side, not to actually _go over_ it." Levi looked over the edge, "What are you feeling, _l'appel du vide_…? An approximate translation would be 'the call of the void' for those of you who don't know French." The last comment had a sideways glance towards Eren thrown in. "That occurs sometimes when a person is high above the ground – they wonder what would happen if they fell and then they do."

Levi tapped the wall thoughtfully as he examined the fire escape. "They probably went down this way to avoid being seen. Hell, they might have even come up this way. All they needed was for someone to come up onto the roof to help them haul the bodies up and then go back down. Someone would need to be… around five feet tall to reach the lip of the roof and then they would need to be very strong in order to haul not only themselves up, but the bodies that were being passed up. There were at least two people involved but I'm betting more on three. It's amazing that they managed not to wake any of the residents doing this…"

Levi moved back and held up the note. "It's going to take them a while to remove the bodies. We should get started on this. Maybe we can figure out their new pattern before they attack again."

* * *

The police station had a somber air to it when they returned. Anyone who hadn't known about it certainly knew now. They didn't show it on their faces, they couldn't, but a person could feel it in the air the moment they walked it. It was a thick blanket of sorrow and confusion, with one question evident on everyone's face; _why?_ Eren would have loved to answer, he would have loved to be able to tell them something, anything, but he couldn't. He didn't know enough to tell them anything that would reassure them, anything that might make the deaths a little easier to bear.

Eren and Levi sat behind Levi's desk, concealed from most of the questioning faces. Eren watched wordlessly as Levi pulled the note from the bag and unfolded it, his stoic blue-gray eyes sliding over the small slip of yellow paper. Eren watched Levi lean over the note, his thoughts slipping away to something that had been nagging him for some time now.

_There was something I was going to tell him…. What was it?_ The thought had been incessantly prodding him on the way over but he couldn't quite place it. He had forgotten something during the rush and in the aftermath of finding the bodies but it continued to elude him. _Fuck… what if I never remember it? What if it was something important, something we couldn't afford to lose? Dammit… I really should have written myself a reminder about what it was._

"Eren… hey, idiot, get your head out of the clouds." Eren flinched at the sound of the voice as it ripped him from his thoughts. Levi was looking up at him, his face impassive except for his eyes, which were fixed with a startling intensity on Eren's face. He felt his face darken with embarrassment,

"Sorry. I was thinking of something." One of Levi's eyebrows arched up but he didn't question, instead straightening the note out before he began to read from it.

_"'The first strike we have taken.  
Two pawns you have forsaken.  
Your move is up; make it smart,  
or listen to the sound of a bitter heart.  
The days are short; the nights are long  
listen now for Death's song.'"_

Eren rubbed his jaw as he mulled over the riddle, running the lines through his head. "There's also a strange irregularity," Levi said after a moment, interrupting Eren's thoughts. "They spelled 'nights' with a capitalized K, as in knights from the Renaissance time period. That's definitely a hint for the next location. However, there are several problems concerning that." Eren stared at Levi, his thoughts coming up with a blank as to why there would be a problem aside from the fact that it was relatively vague. "The Renaissance festival is scheduled to start this Wednesday and end on the next," he sighed. "I'm sure you can see where I'm getting with that. There is also the problem about roads, streets, and various other things containing the word 'Knight.' There are at least three of those in Shiganshina alone."

"Fuck…" Eren muttered, rubbing his eyes in agitation. "Levi… they could have intentionally done that to make us think that they were specifying 'knight with a 'K' instead of 'night' with an 'N.'" Eren tacked on thoughtfully, "They're giving us so many places and just with that one freaking word."

"Yes, but did you see the letter etched on the hilt of the knife?" Levi countered, "They had carved a 'K' into the blade and had underlined it, like the 'C' left on the bat with the Harpers. That can also hold two meanings – perhaps it's just another meaningless letter meant to confuse us or maybe it's pointing us in the right direction."

"We can't rule out all possibilities yet," Eren shrugged. "I'll get a new map from Oluo in as soon as we've got the rest worked out so that we can begin mapping out possible places." He leaned forwards, brown hair falling into his face. "Could you read me the last four lines again?"

"_'Your move is up; make it smart or listen to the sound of a bitter heart. The days are short; the nights are long. Listen now for Death's song.'_" Levi glanced up from the note, scratching his cheek thoughtfully. "They also mentioned pawns in the second line… Either they are considering this a chess game or that's another clue." His features twisted into disgust at the mention of it being a game before it became an impassive mask once more.

"Bitter heart… that makes no sense," Eren muttered, tapping aimlessly at his knee. "Are they referring to a particular person, a place, or an event? It could be referring someone related to either these last two victims or the next two they have already selected. Are there any conventions or events that could be related?"

Levi rolled his eyes, "You act like I should know that off the top of my head. I don't know but I can look around and see what I can find. There's the last line to consider. What do you think that could mean by 'Death's song'?"

Eren shrugged, "It sounds familiar… I've heard something along the lines of that before but I can't place it… I might have seen something akin to it on the Internet or maybe in a file." _A file… the files!_ "Dammit!" Eren slammed his hand onto the table, eliciting a jolt from Levi. "What is it you idiot?" Levi said testily as he fixed a glare on Eren. "Have you had some sort of epiphany? Or do you just need to take a shit?"

"Levi, be _serious_!" Eren groaned desperately. "No, it's neither of those. I remembered something I was going to tell you last night but you never answered your phone. When I tried to tell you this morning you interrupted me, although that was understandable."

Levi's brow furrowed in confusion and he stretched out, fingers digging into the pocket of his jeans to extract his phone. Eren turned his head away, trying to keep his eyes from Levi's form. Levi pulled his phone out and slid it open, his thumb darting across the screen. "Oh… I see you did. Sorry, I habitually keep my phone on silent or vibrate. I think I assumed you were Hanji… What were you going to tell me?"

"Master's files," Eren grimaced as the words passed his lips, unsure of Levi's reaction to the coming news. "I opened them up yesterday to check on the encryption. Most of the files were destroyed when either a virus or a large-spread corruption was discovered. Only two of the files are left, both of which had finished unencrypting. I've read through the first one." Eren twisted in his seat to snatch his bag from the floor, keeping his eyes away from Levi's face, nervous about his reaction. He could see the raven haired man out of the corner of his eye as he dug into his bag; Levi remained silent and unmoving, a perfect statute that had been set into a chair never to be moved again.

Eren pulled the papers from his bag and finally looked up at Levi. The raven-haired man stared at him, mouth slightly parted and eyes wide. "You have _got_ to be kidding me." Horrified disbelief filled every plane, every angle, of Levi's face and his words were the epitome of skepticism. Eren held the papers he had printed out towards Levi, who took them with gradual and mechanical movements. "You aren't, are you?" Eren shook his head in response. "Dammit!" Levi's free hand clenched into a tight fist, his eyes narrowing as he glared down at the papers as if they had somehow grievously offended him. "Do you have any backups? Do _we_ have any backups?"

"As far as I can remember, I don't think we do." Levi shut his eyes and set the papers on his legs so that he could slowly clench and unclench both of his hands. Eren could sense the frustration that flowed from every pore. He waited for Levi to reopen his eyes before he spoke. "Wait... didn't you hold on to a flash drive from the case? I gave it back to you after I copied the files."

Levi's head shot up and he stared at Eren for a moment before he twisted in his chair and pulled one of the desk drawers open. Eren watched as he rummaged around through the drawer before he leaned back, shaking his head. "I remember putting a flash drive in there but if I left it in there it's gone now. Well now, this is fucking great." Levi sighed in irritation and slammed the drawer shut with his foot. "We should start marking down possible streets and start eliminating places. This is going to take a while so we'll need as much of a jump as we can get, especially since we don't know when they'll strike again."

Eren stood and stretched his limbs, his joints cracking and creaking. "I'll go get another map of the city and then one of the individual districts. Anything else you think we'll need?" Levi shook his head slowly, "That's all we will need at the moment." Eren nodded and darted off in search of the supplies.

* * *

Levi followed Eren to his apartment, keeping pace with Eren despite the swift and long strides that the brown haired man took. Both set the maps they were carrying down on the coffee table, crowding the space that wasn't taken up by the laptop. Levi unrolled the ones of the districts in the Rose Division, which had contained the most locations that could possibly be related to the case and the location of the next murder. They sat on the couch, so close that their knees kept knocking if either of them moved too much.

Together they marked out streets, circled and highlighted blocks and buildings, and flagged other possible related locations. Numerous streets could be linked to various points in the poem. The entirety of the park where the Renaissance festival was being held, the Rose Division Park, had been outlined and shaded in for good measure. They had even gone so far as to flag a hospital, two funeral homes, and the offices of people involved in Renaissance history, all in the hope that these locations might be connected to the case.

The Karanese District was the one they had their eyes on, as it contained four streets had been marked; Knight Avenue, Knight Street, Night Boulevard, and Night Parkway. The Rose Division Park stretched across nearly half of Karanese District. There were at least a dozen buildings they had flagged. Coupled with all of the locations on the rest of the maps, it was like trying to find an invisible needle in a haystack-like arrangement made of silver slivers.

Levi dragged the edge of his red marker along the edge of the Rose Division Park, red blossoming in the wake of the felt tip of the marker. "These caves that Meridew and Masters had spoken of… are you certain no absolute locations were mentioned?" Eren nodded as he flicked through a stack of papers.

"He even stated that the location had been scratched out from the journal. He had no leads and we have none. All we have is a bunch of dead bodies, missing children, and fucked up poems that tell us nothing other than the vaguest of clues to ever exist." Eren threw his hands into the air, frustration evident on his face. "It's astounding how well these bastards have managed to cover their tracks. This is about the time that having a larger police force would be excellent, especially with all of this ground to cover over a time span of God knows how long because we don't know when they'll strike again."

Levi capped the marker and leaned back on the couch, twisting his torso so he could look at Eren. "There's no point in complaining. We've got to work with what we've got and this is it. I don't think I've ever had any less to work on a case with, but we'll make this work out in the end. In the meantime, if you're done complaining, why don't you look through the files and see if you can find anything that might give us a general time of when the next attack might occur, whether it's another kidnapping or another double homicide."

Eren sighed but complied, picking up several more sheets to scan through. Levi picked up a small stack of papers and scanned the first page; details from the autopsy reports. Mina Carolina's and Nac Tius' would not be in for a while yet as they had only managed to completely free the bodies from the concrete roof two hours ago. Hanji would probably have a mostly complete autopsy to finish and the second to perform tomorrow since her office closed at five and it was fifteen till five.

"What do you think…?" Whatever Eren had been saying was interrupted by a massive yawn. His jaws snapped shut after an extended period of time before he tried to speak again. "What do you think happened to those three children that are still missing? We still haven't found them yet."

_Perhaps it's best that we haven't found them… Finding them would mean that they are dead. As of right now, they are both alive and dead, much like Schrodinger's cat. Although I dread to think of what might be happening to them if they are still alive._ "Who knows?" Levi murmured, flipping through more pages. Eren's only response to Levi's comment was to yawn again and shift his papers a bit.

They fell back into silence, a common occurrence between them. The periods of silence had long since ceased to be awkward, instead becoming oddly comfortable and a time that Levi enjoyed in a strange way. Perhaps it was just because there was no one talking his head off or nagging him about going to one bar or another with them or perhaps it was simply the fact that he could get both his precious silence and a human companion sharing the peaceful space with him.

Levi looked up some time later and stared at the wooden floor of the apartment, watching the final bars of sunlight slowly inch their way across the floor, the light tricking in from between the cracks of the blinds growing fainter as night prepared to clench them within its grasp. It was nearly six thirty; darkness would be on them soon. Gray eyes slowed wandered across the room, dancing over objects and papers until they landed on Eren's face.

The other man's face was slack, his eyes shut and his lips parted slightly. Eren's chest moved up and down slowly and rhythmically; he had fallen asleep at some point. His body swayed gently from side to side, jerking back upright when he leaned too far to one side and remaining upright for a few moments before he swayed the other way. Levi sighed and shook his head but an unconscious smile spread across his face, small and amused.

Pale fingers stretched out towards the irritating man that had wormed his way into Levi's life, moving almost of their own accord. His hand rested on Eren's shoulder for a moment before he gently tugged Eren down and closer till the other man's head was nestled on top of his leg. Eren shifted slightly but his eyes remained clamped shut, his face pressed against Levi's thigh and his arms curled up against his chest. Levi's smile broadened, a smile of genuine affection crossing his face momentarily as he gazed down at Eren.

Levi raised the papers in his other hand and refocused on the notes. He missed the murmur the first time, nearly inaudible despite the silence. Light gray eyes flicked down again and he watched as Eren's lips moved again, the sound more audible this time. "Thanks… Levi." Hm, so it seems that he _was_ awake, although he probably wouldn't be for much longer.

Pale fingers threaded their way through Eren's hair before Levi had quite realized that they had done so and by the time he noticed he couldn't really find the heart to remove them. Instead he let his fingers roam through the silky chestnut locks over and over again, his movements slow and absent. The soft silence drifted back between them for several minutes before soft snores, almost inaudible, began to emanate from Eren's sleeping form. "Anytime Eren…"

**Chapter 15: End**

* * *

First off let me apologize for the delay in this chapter; I was trying to take care of schoolwork and softball so I ended up putting this chapter off for a few days, and coupled with some minor writer's block, I was having one hell of a time trying to write this. But I've finally finished~ Many thanks to Calley, who aided me with a couple of the scenes in here~ I must also notify you that from this point on updates will become more spaced out but I will try 1-2 a week. Be on the lookout for the new AoT story, _Speak!_ which will appear in a few days.

**calleyrose:** Excellent, I love riots~  
**Anon (Hanji):** Haha calm down, I'll continue so no worries!  
**ichiruzuka:** I'd respond to the first two questions but... although I do recall one of them saying in the previous chapter that there was a possibility that the pattern had changed yet again, so no, the poem wasn't wrong. As for the second half; thanks for pointing that out! Microsoft might save my ass on a lot of error but it can't catch everything unfortunately.  
**TheOtaku2:** Cliffhangers are the best~ Except for in _Game of Thrones_, those can be terrifying.  
**layer14:** Haha if you think that's mean you'll think I'm pure evil with _Speak!  
_**Cupcake Snowflake:** Thank you o/o  
**blackirishawk:** Depending on what you want him to figure out it might take him a while...


	16. Dead Man's Clue

**END GAME**

**Chapter 16: Dead Man's Clue**

* * *

Eren rolled over and opened his eyes to stare at the coffee table in front of him, just beneath eye level. The apartment was dark, unlike how it was what seemed like just a few minutes ago. He could remember flipped through the pages, the sleepless night finally catching up to him, and shutting his eyes for a moment, just a moment. There had been something warm too, his face pressed right up against it. Something had been touching his head, the movements soothing. The only problem was that he couldn't quite remember through the haze of sleep that had clouded his mind at those points.

Now he was lying down on his couch beneath a blanket, the apartment dark, quiet, and definitely lacking concerning the presence of a certain raven haired man. _I'm amazed Levi didn't kill me..._ Eren pushed the blanket away from his body and rose from the couch. He glanced around, making sure he was completely alone before he glanced at the clock; 6:15. _Ah... Levi really is going to kill me._ There was a piece of paper lying in the kitchen next to the coffee pot, waiting to be read.

He picked up the note and skimmed over the short message scrawled by an elegant hand as he started the coffee. **Eren: you fell asleep, like an idiot, so I left. I'll be down at the station by 7:30.** Eren set the note back down and pulled one of the ceramic mugs out, setting it down on the countertop with a heavy thunk so that he could fill it. Once the coffee was ready, now a light tan in color and steaming lightly, he sat back down on the couch.

He pressed the power button on his laptop and pulled the black and green blanket back over his shoulders. The computer began to hum quietly as it started up. Eren entered the password and waited for the update popups to finish appearing before he closed them and opened one of the folders littering his desktop. _It's time I looked into that other document…_ he thought, sipping at his coffee as the contents of the folder loaded.

Only the sounds of muted clicks and hums filled the apartment as Eren slowly made his way to his desired destination. He opened the last folder and let his mouse hover over the document for a moment before he clicked on it. _God knows what kind of shit is going to be in this one…_ He took another sip of his coffee as he watched Microsoft begin to load. _I could have anything from a total bullshit file to something that might actually crack this case. Probably the latter though. In fact, I'm fucking counting on that._

The small Microsoft window disappeared, replaced a few seconds later by the document itself. The document was older than 'Project Eotena' – some of the information would be obsolete or the same most likely. Eren picked up the laptop and pulled it into his lap, propping his feet up on the coffee table. He took a breath and took one last sip of coffee before he lowered his eyes and began to read.

_**Titans**_

_The Titans are a complex group. One must have a similar mindset as the founders in order to understand what exactly their purpose is. I don't even understand the extents of what their goals are sometimes, yet I somehow manage to get by. My name is Samuel Masters and this is a short entry concerning all of the things I have observed while with the Titans. Admittedly, the information I've gathered is pathetic concerning the amount, but some of it is important._

This is no ordinary group, gang, or cult even. The closest name I can think of would be a cult, and even then, that probably doesn't fit them well enough. More akin to radicals, although they put most radicals to shame, as most of those who fit in that description don't go around murdering everyone and everything that they find useless.

They have a way of marking out the members of the members of their cult. We are marked by cut on the backs of our necks, about three inches long typically and cut horizontally. This is supposed to represent something along the lines of purity as the incision releases the sins that we have pent up, as leaving the sins pent up inside of us could turn us into monsters of some sort. Now that I'm writing this I find myself wishing that I had actually paid attention during the initiation ceremony. I probably should have it memorized considering there were twelve other initiates along with me during the ceremony.

It began with Dr. Gilbert Marlo Meridew's ideal for a new world, a world where some people are superior to others. At this time I have not had all of the details explained to me; only the test subjects and the founders have. There are thirty of us all together, not counting M, J, L, and the four from 1989. G knows more, as does S, but I'm not sure either of them know everything. The details of their plan are sketchy when it comes to underlings like me. We are on a need-to-know basis, and even then we still don't know most of the time.

None of us knew even Meridew; none of us are old enough for that. Although M, J, and L claim to have known Meridew when they were children, although sometimes I find that doubtful. They don't look a day over thirty at most, let alone old enough to have been born around the 1910's and 20's – it's been over one hundred years since 1910, and even if those children were still alive, they would look a hell of a lot older. Either way, only those three know the true extent of Meridew's plans.

I've been fishing around, trying to uncover what I can. Most of the information is inaccessible or it's written in a cypher. I might be good with encryptions and such but cyphers are a whole level to themselves. I've also managed to gleam the fact of that they plan to carry out a massacre of Biblical proportions. They plan to kill off all of the terminally ill, old, and disabled. Anyone that they don't deem useful will be killed. Probably in a concentration camp-esque set up, although I can't guarantee the truth of that last statement. They also plan to create a race of 'super humans,' although I am currently unsure of how exactly they will go about it. As for those that they cannot turn into this new super race… I am unsure about their face. There is a possibility of either mass slavery or mass genocide, or even both. The information I have is not complete but I plan to expand upon this in time.

Hopefully M will not discover what I am doing, as that could prove to be a problem. It's growing hard to conceal what I am doing. Eavesdropping is not easy. It's almost like they can sense me despite the walls between us most of the time. Hopefully I can keep the ruse up for a little longer, long enough to get this data to someone who can stop them, stop their plans. When I joined them I didn't know that things would be like this. I didn't know things would change quite so much. I'm not sure when M became quite so bloodthirsty, when G started becoming so hungry for power, when S started to lose her faith, or when I started to lose mine. I'll try to find out more but there are no guarantees that I will.

_I need to find G's son. I need to warn him of their plans. I don't doubt that G infected him with whatever the four subjects, along with what M, J, and L were given. He might be the key to stopping this. I only hope that I can find him in time. The biggest problem will be locating him. The next will be making him believe everything I have to say._

* * *

Levi sipped delicately at his piping hot coffee and he scanned the latest document that Eren had brought him. While it contained nothing that would help reveal any new leads in the case, it certainly gave them further insight as to what the Titans' plans were. Levi sighed and set the paper down and picked at the rim of the gray coffee cup with his nail. _Genocide and slavery… couple that with anything from invading a country to conquering the world… God knows what this super race of theirs is going to be capable of. With the Redford girl still missing that brings their total up to three, assuming that those children survived instead of their bodies simply not being found._

He glanced up at the board, littered with the maps that they had gone over the night before. They had broken out another stand that morning in order to put a map of all of Eden along with photographs of the missing children, the deceased victims, the weapons, and of the crime scenes. He watched as Eren jabbed at the pictures of the weapons and the letters scrawled out at the top of the page. "We need to figure out why they're leaving these for us! Why would they be leaving these letters unless they were important?" Eren's voice was sharp and irritated, a tone that he had been adopting more often as of late. Levi nodded as Eren jabbed the pictures again and continued speaking. "When should we expect the autopsy reports back from Zoe?"

"About three hours," Levi murmured, checking his watch; 8:30. They had been at the station for over an hour and had come up with nothing new. Eren was quickly getting frustrated. Honestly, Levi was amazed that Eren hadn't punched a hole through the board yet. He stood and approached the map they had been going over the night before. Levi sighed and ran his hand over his jaw as he looked at it. "We need to narrow this down further. Any ideas of how to continue ruling places out? I'm thinking we could rule out any places that aren't within a mile radius of a hospital, morgue, or funeral home."

Eren shifted over to look at the maps, his green eyes darting all across the board. "Yeah… if we rule out all of the places that are not within a mile radius the amount of places to search drops dramatically. We can rule the festival out then since its located about six miles away from the nearest street that both has a name related to either form of night or a place often associated with death. Let me get another map so that we can start again, although this time we'll have a more concrete idea."

Levi watched Eren turn and walk away for a few moments before he turned back to look at the board. _The murders occurred Sunday, the twentieth of October… We have no ideas that could pinpoint when the next murders could occur. They could occur today, tomorrow, next week even. Or they could be happening right now. Maybe I could have Ilse analyze the poems… She's good with this kind of shit._

Footsteps dragged his attention back to the matters on hand and he watched as Eren unfurled yet another map and tacked it up over the map of Eden. He plucked a marker from Levi's desk, one of the many that had been seen an increase in usage over the past several weeks. He tossed Levi a ruler, which the raven haired man caught with deft hands and pressed it against the map. "Alright," Eren said as he uncapped the marker, "Tell me what you've got."

Levi began to slowly prattle off the names as he scanned the board, looking for any places that could fit their new search. The going was slow as Levi had to first locate the streets and then search them, making sure that they contained a hospital, morgue, funeral home, or graveyard within at least a mile radius. Levi could only thank God for Google, which helped clarify the names associated with several places in Karanese District, some of which nearly led him to believe that they were related to the newest search. Eren highlighted the streets that Levi called out, outlining the buildings and places that could be associated with the poem. A compass would be needed later in order to create the range of area that would have to be covered. They would make an initial circle a mile wide and add a five-mile wide zone as a precautionary.

Levi called out the final street name and began to list the buildings that ran along it. "First is the Karanese General Hospital, near the intersection of Knight Avenue, with a K, and Spring Boulevard. Mumford's Funeral Parlor would be next, between Park Street and Peony Parkway. The intersection of Knight Avenue and Boulder Drive would be next with the Summerset Crematorium." Each location took several extra minutes to find. By the time they finally finished simply highlighting the streets and outlining the places of interest it was nearly eleven o'clock.

"I don't suppose you have a compass on you," Levi muttered as he dropped his phone onto the desk finally, the battery almost completely depleted. Eren glanced at him, an eyebrow raised, confusion evident in his bright eyes. "I'm going to assume you aren't talking about the ones that point you in the right direction. Either way I still don't have a compass."

"Did you really never use one in math? That's surprising… The things they must have taken out of the curriculum in so few years. Well this is unfortunate, especially considering the fact that you can barely draw a straight line, let alone a halfway decent circle." Levi smirked as he watched Eren's eyes widen in indignation. The brown haired man could have argued, he certainly could have, but there was no point as both of them knew the statement to be the truth.

Eren sighed dropped the marker onto the desk. "I suppose I'll be the one getting this compass. Where's the nearest craft store?" Levi shrugged and Eren sighed. The latter grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on, patting his pockets to ensure that his wallet was in them before he left. "I'll be back in ten," he called over his shoulder on the way out.

The door clicked shut behind him and Levi stared at the door for a while, a vague sense of disappointment welling up. _He doesn't have to go alone to get it… _He shook his head and turned back to the map. _Focus Levi, focus._ Silver eyes glared at the board, a plan forming in his head.

_There are four zones currently within the Karanese District. Once we can get an approximate range we can draft an appropriate number of officers in order to patrol the zones. The only problem would be securing enough officers for a weeks' worth of patrols at least. The Karanese police force should be able to help us… Maybe Irvin could call in a few favors with some of the other districts. I'd prefer at least three groups of two per zone but that can't be guaranteed of course._

Levi bit the corner of his thumbnail, a disgusting habit that occasionally resurfaced despite the years. It was still better than some that could return, ones from a past best forgotten. _If we use the buildings as the central point to the areas we could narrow it down further depending on how many overlap._ He sighed and sat down. Hopefully Hanji would be done with the autopsies by the time Eren returned and they drew out the areas.

* * *

Zoe tossed a pair of gloves to each man as they walked through the doors to the autopsy room, where the two bodies were already lying on the tables, their flesh pallid and their bodies limp. Their eyes were shut, giving them the illusion of sleep till one realized that their chests lacked the rise and fall of breathing, that their bodies were simply too still. Eren felt his chest tighten uncomfortably as he looked at the two. It wasn't like how it would be when he looked or got close to Levi; that was a pleasant tightening, one he welcomed. This one was completely different, one of sadness and pain. _I still can't believe that they're dead…_

Their torsos were uncovered, revealing the new scars and stitches on their chests. Mina's limbs were no longer separated from her body. Thick black stitch-like threads wrapped around her arms where they had been cut away. Eren was positive that her hands and legs bore the same threads that were holding her body together. Zoe walked over to the bodies and picked up Mina's chart first.

She glanced up at Eren and Levi, "I've already checked their necks. They don't bear the mark like Masters did. For Mina Carolina, she had all both of her arms and legs hacked away, presumably by a Bowie knife as the marks on her thigh are consistent with that of one. The assailants then proceeded to cut her fingers away from her hands. She lost her little finger, ring finger, and middle finger on the left hand. On the right hand they cut away her thumb and forefinger. That was the extent of damage inflicted upon Mina."

She moved over to Nac's body and pulled the chart out of the bin on the table. The wound on his forehead had been stitched up, along with the gaping wound that had formerly dragged across his throat. His left eye was hidden behind an eyelid but there was no eyelid to hide the empty socket of the right. Eren doubted that either would get an open casket visitation once their bodies were released to be buried. No family would want such the bodies of their children and relatives to be shown in such a condition.

"Nac Tius had his throat slashed. The wound was deep enough to go straight through, nearly to his spinal cord. I'm almost positive that the knife in his forehead was the one used to murder him, whereas another was used on Mina. Meanwhile, his right eye was also gouged out. To be honest… it almost looks like it was clawed out but if so the person managed to do so without leaving any DNA on his skin, which is quite the feat. On top of that, his skull was fractured in three different places – the back of his skull, the front, where the knife was, and on the top of his skull. The marks appear to be consistent with that of the rooftop, which leads me to presume that the attacker slammed his head into the ground twice, presumably before slashing his throat and embedding the knife into his skull."

Levi nodded and wandered around the bodies, first Nac's and then Mina's. Eren stayed firmly rooted into place at least ten feet away from the tables. His stomach was uneasy and he knew his face was far paler than normal. He clutched his elbows, hugging his arms to his chest and kept his eyes focused on the white tiles beneath his feet. Dead strangers, he could handle perfectly fine, without a problem in fact once he stopped remembering the images of their bloody corpses and focus on the matters at hand. Dead friends or acquaintances… That was a completely different story.

Eren glanced up at Levi, keeping his eyes focused on the raven haired man as he jerked his head towards the door, the message hopefully clear enough. _Can I leave?_ Levi caught Eren's stare and nodded after a moment. Eren whirled around and left the room on legs that moved like they were made out of wood, his knees stiff and uncooperative, like ungreased hinges and joints on a machine. He leaned up against the wall outside of the autopsy room and took a breath. His brow furrowed as he thought of something, _anything_, in order to take his mind away from the bodies.

_I never signed up for this… I was just supposed to be a hacker for fucks sake! When did that turn into _this_?!_ He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling at the long brown strands harder than what was truly necessary. _Can't I just go back to being a worker at a bookstore? Damn it… no, I can't. I've got to see this through, even if it kills me. Or nearly kills me… again._

The doors swung open, the sound bringing Eren's head up as Levi left the autopsy room. He glanced the wrong way at first and then towards the side that Eren was standing. A sympathetic grimace crossed Levi's face and he put a tentative hand on Eren's shoulder, patting it gently, albeit awkwardly. Despite the shorter man's somewhat awkward movements it still brought a warm feeling to Eren, one he was quite familiar with by now. "Go home. We've got the perimeters graphed out so that part is done. I'll get in contact if anything else occurs. So just… go and do Eren things"

Eren hesitated but nodded. "Thanks Levi." Levi simply shrugged and pushed Eren out the door, leaving the emerald eyed boy to make his way slowly down the streets to his apartment. A vague sense of disappointment wormed its way into existence since Levi wasn't coming along, but Eren understood. _He probably has things to do. There's no way he'd want anything to do with an idiot like me. I'm pretty positive he can't even see me as being any more than a friend, if I'm even that to him._ Eren's hands clenched into fists and he rammed them into the pockets of his jacket, the tempo of his steps increasing till he was practically racing back to his apartment.

* * *

Levi tapped the arm of the navy-colored armchair he was seated in as he stared at the papers in his hand. _It's Tuesday night. I doubt that the Titans will do anything tonight, so soon after the latest homicide. That gives us time to organize patrols by tomorrow morning. We'll be able to field ten officers from our district, and that's being hopeful. Luckily Karanese has always been able to obtain more recruits and officers due to the higher amount of citizens living within that district._

He sighed and stopped tapping the arm of the chair, instead opting to bite gently on the corner of his thumbnail. _We still have to find those three kids too… Son of a bitch, this is one fucked up case._ He dropped the papers on the end table by the chair and stood, stretching his legs, which had stiffened up from the lack of movement in the last three hours. His phone chimed faintly the kitchen, where he had set it down on the counter four hours earlier before making coffee and sitting down to review information pertaining to the case. Levi grabbed his coffee cup and strode into the kitchen. Once the coffee cup was in the dishwasher he leaned up against the marble counter and picked up his phone so he could examine the text.

**From Hanji:  
Hey, Levi, whenever you get this, give me a call, alright? I found something on one of the bodies  
Received: 9:26 October 22****th****, 2013**

Levi stared at the message for a moment before he exited out of the message and punched in Hanji's number, something he had memorized long ago. She picked up on the second ring, her voice excited. _"Levi, I was looking at the bodies earlier and I noticed that they had reddish-brown smears on them. I wasn't sure if it was blood or not, so I scraped some off of both of them and sent it off to be examined. Apparently it was dirt, or silt to be more precise. This silt also carries special enzymes and minerals that are only found in one place in Eden. Well, actually, it's found along the entirety of Adam's River, but even so, it gives you a clue, no?"_

Levi straightened up, his thoughts picking back up and whirling around in his head, resembling a tornado in their chaos. "Adam's River... you mean that both of the victims were murdered there? If that's the case, then either that was a coincidence that both of them just _happened_ to be there or that was where they were taken before the murders took place. Is there any way to narrow it down any further?"

_"No, I'm sorry but that would be almost impossible. The minerals and enzymes in it are consisted from one end of the river to the other. However, that might give you a hint as to where these Titans have holed themselves up at. I'll see if it can be narrowed down any further but that is highly unlikely."_

He nodded absently at Hanji's words, a plan already half-formed in his head. "I'll need another map," he murmured to himself. "Assuming that the attacks are concentrated towards one particular direction of the river, which could help pinpoint the general direction or area they are located in." Hanji hummed in response. "If we can do that, then finding them will be the next step, which, while it won't be easy, will be easier than blindly searching the city."

Hanji chuckled on the other side of the voice. _"I'll take a 'thank you' now, if you please."_

Levi felt his eye twitch ever so slightly but he sighed and complied with Hanji's demands. "… Thank you Hanji."

_"See, that wasn't so bad! Now, if you will excuse me, I have some errands to run. I seem to have run out of magnesium iodide and I require it for a new experiment I'm working on. It involves-"_

"Yes Hanji, that's wonderful, goodbye." Her stream of words was cut off when Levi stabbed at the End Call button and set the phone down on the countertop with a clatter. He leaned forwards once again, one hand beneath his chin, the other arm flat on the countertop as he stared at the tall wall in front of him. Some aspects of this case were focusing while others seemed to only be getting blurrier and blurrier. _I almost wish the feds had jurisdiction to take over cases that were exclusive to our city and not just international cases. I suppose that's the price to pay for having an independent city-like-country where they rely only on the police divisions to handle cases within the borders._

He let out a slow breath and dropped his head onto the cool countertop. _Contacting Emil and the rest of those bastards is tempting right now… they probably know more about the Titans than we do. No! I said I'd never go back, never make contact again. I'm thinking irrationally. They wouldn't know any more than we do. I'll just have to double my efforts._

* * *

A twist of the keys locked the doors behind him and the man turned to walk down the street, back towards his home. White clouds of vapor escaped his lips as his warm breath met the frigid air. A heavy wind whipped through the city, biting at his skin despite the thick jacket and other articles of clothing. _I should have gotten a taxi_. The thought would have been more convenient to have when he was still back in the shop, surrounded by warmth and the familiar musty scent of paper. _Ah, oh well, it makes no difference. The apartment is only three blocks away anyways. _At least he had remembered his gloves and hat this time instead of leaving them back at the apartment again.

He rubbed his gloved hands together, trying to create a bit of friction before he gave up, shoved his hands into his pockets, pulled his head further down past the upturned collar of his jacket, and carried on. Light gray clouds scudded across the sky overhead, leaving the full moon completely visible, adding a bit of extra light on top of the streetlights and lights coming from the windows in various states of exposing the interior.

Silence coated the streets like a thick blanket. Only a few cars traversed the streets despite the fact that it was only nine o'clock. _Perhaps everyone is already inside for the night. I can understand why. It's got to be what, twenty-five degrees out right now?_ Temperature accuracy aside, his fingers and toes were starting to get numb at the tips and he couldn't feel the tip of his nose. He sniffed delicately and hunched his shoulders against the harsh wind that whipped around him.

He stopped at a street light, waiting patiently for the pedestrian light to change as cars occasionally rolled through the intersection. He wasn't in such a rush that he felt the need to sprint through the intersections. Plus one could never know when a car could rush through without their headlights one. The light changed and he moved on. He could hear the sound of footsteps echoing behind him now, an audible addition in the muted silence. He glanced over his shoulder.

A bulky figure walked about thirty feet behind him, his shoulders hunched, a black hat pulled low over his hair. The man turned back to face the front and crossed the street, his footsteps a little quicker than before, but not much more. _There's no need to worry…_ The thought rang of hollow hope in his head, especially when the memories of the recent killings resurfaced to remind him that no, the streets had ceased to be safe. _Just two more blocks. Two more blocks and I'll be home._

The footsteps seemed closer now but the man merely increased his pace a little more, now moving at a brisk pace. He kept his eyes glued ahead, at the next intersection. He saw a person step out from an alleyway and stop directly in his path. His steps faltered and came to a stop. The figure was familiar somehow… feminine in build and relatively short in stature. He couldn't be certain though as a black cap was pulled low over her face and the lights were brighter behind her rather than in front. The man glanced over his shoulder; the bulky figure that had been following a fair distance behind him was now closer, far too close for comfort.

Prickles of alarm were starting to worm their way into him now, becoming evident in an uncomfortable way. The man grimaced and picked up his steps again, making to move around the girl. A hand gripped his wrist as he tried to brush by, locking him into place with an iron grip. He jerked against her grasp, panic sending his heart pounding as he tried to break free. "L-let go of me!" The girl's grip on him only tightened. The man's brown eyes flared in panic and he pulled his free arm back, hand clenching into a fist.

A new hand, this one larger and rougher than the girls, clamped down around his wrist, locking it into place. Sheer terror tore through him and he opened his mouth to scream but another hand slammed over his mouth. One of them rammed a knee into his stomach and he doubled over, coughing and choking, straining to drag air into his suddenly voided lungs through his nose. The two assailants held him in place as a car rumbled up nearby and they began to drag him towards it. Icy dread pumped through his veins alongside heated waves of adrenaline. He kicked and jerked against their hands, straining to pull away, to break free. Their grips were iron shackles around his wrists, refusing to free him.

He did the last thing he could; he opened his mouth and bit down on the man's hand as hard as he could, smashing them into the hot flesh against his mouth. Skin broke beneath his teeth and blood, hot and thick, washed over his tongue, the sickening taste twisting his stomach uncomfortably. The attacker jerked his hand away, a hissed curse tearing from his lips. The brown eyed man jerked away from his and raised his head to sky. Blood dripped down his chin but he paid no mind, his mind too blank to care anymore.

A scream tore through him, calling out a single word. He could only pray that someone heard it, heard _him_. After all, that had used what little oxygen he had managed to suck into his aching lungs. Something flashed into his peripheral and a fist connected with the side of his head, snapping it to one side. His head spun and his vision wavered as they stuffed his limp and unresponsive body into the care. He had one last thought before he crashed into oblivion; _Jean!_

**Chapter 16: End**

* * *

**Yes, that kidnapped guy at the end is important. His identity shall be revealed next chapter. **Ah, finally finished~ Sorry it took so long; I've been busy, plus my internet/charger have been futzy. But now that softball is over for the year I'll have loads more time~ Alright, I'm done with that so to those lovelies that reviewed:

**calleyrose: Heh heh, thank you~ I'm hoping the next poem will be a bit clearer... no guarantees though. Haha, of course I would!  
Cupcake Snowflake: It's actually my dream to become an author so this is kind of my testing ground to better my skills since my high school doesn't offer creative writing courses -_- Haha, I'm glad that it was~  
iciruzuka: Yeah... I'm not sure if I intended for it to be quite so confusing when I rewrote it from the original...  
TheOtaku2: Haha, you'll have to thank calleyrose in part for that; she let me bounce the scene off of her till we got that.  
layder14: Thank you~ I'm glad it is worth the wait!  
Anon (Anime32124): Haha yeah, sorry that I don't write fluff too often. Ah, thank you~ But I don't want you to be thinking so much that you get distracted from class! Yes, I see and I'm smirking at the outcome!**


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